Doug Up on Bourke

Overview

When I was a kid I was convinced that everyday objects had lives of their own and got up to amusing hijinks whenever I wasn't looking. When things got lost, I used to imagine they'd taken themselves off to a kind of ramshackle clubhouse of 'stuff', where the chairs and the tables were having a fantastic party and exchanging witty banter about things I didn't understand. And in my mind that place looked exactly like Doug Up On Bourke. It's where industrial, commercial and rustic antiques all come together in one space, and where you can spend hours walking around in wide-eyed fascination.

Doug Up On Bourke was established back in 2003, and sources items from all over Australia, with everything lovingly restored by hand. It's the place to go if you're after shipping trunks, industrial work tables, watering cans, church pews or old bakelite phones. The place is huge, so you need an hour or so to browse through everything, but you're guaranteed to find something amazing.