Free delivery to every Wollongong address
Wollongong, the northern suburbs, the southern suburbs, the western suburbs up against the escarpment, or a trade yard at Port Kembla — the price you see on the listing is the price delivered. There is no freight line on the invoice and no Illawarra surcharge. Collection from our Melbourne yard is also free if you would rather put the container on your own truck or trailer.
Nothing is charged on the website. Checkout or a quote request returns an emailed invoice, you pay by EFT, PayID or an emailed card link, and delivery is booked once the payment clears.
The run up from Melbourne
Wollongong is roughly 800 km from the yard, so it is linehaul freight rather than a local delivery. The usual route is north on the Hume Freeway and Hume Highway (M31) through Albury-Wodonga, then off the Hume at Wilton and down Picton Road (B88) onto the Princes Motorway (M1) — a shorter, straighter approach into the Illawarra than running through Sydney. Some loads come the other way, up the Hume to Sydney and south down the M1 past Helensburgh and the Mount Ousley descent. Whichever way it comes, the load is planned as a long haul, not squeezed into a metro run.
Published transit after dispatch is 4–10 business days for regional NSW, and dispatch is 2–5 business days after payment clears. Put those together before you book a tradesman or a crane at your end. The full picture is on the delivery page.
Site access: escarpment on one side, ocean on the other
Wollongong's housing sits on a narrow shelf between the Illawarra escarpment and the coast, and that shelf decides how a container gets in. In the older beachside suburbs — Thirroul, Bulli, Woonona, Corrimal, Towradgi, Fairy Meadow — blocks are often narrow, with a single driveway down one side, mature trees at the front and powerlines over the street. A 20 ft container is about 6.1 m long, so a tilt-tray wants roughly twice that in straight, clear, firm ground to slide the box off, plus room to pull out afterwards. Plenty of those streets will not give it.
That is where the truck choice earns its keep. If there is a clear strip of kerb or a wide driveway beside the drop point, a side-loader can set the container down without needing the long run. If neither works, we say so before you pay rather than after — this piece explains the difference between the two trucks.
The other local trap is slope. Blocks at Woonona Heights, Bulli, Mount Keira, Mount Kembla, Figtree and Balgownie often fall away from the street, and a container put down on uneven ground will sit twisted until the doors bind. It needs a level, compacted base — bearers on firm ground, not bare lawn — and it needs that base ready on the day, because the truck will not wait while you move a trailer load of roadbase. See what to put a shipping container on.
What Illawarra buyers actually take
- 20 ft containers for renovation and knock-down-rebuild storage, trade tools and materials. It is the size that fits most Wollongong driveways and holds a full house lot. Browse 20 ft containers.
- 10 ft and 8 ft units where the side access is genuinely tight or the yard is small — northern-suburb backyards, tips, garden and landscaping yards around Dapto, Albion Park and Shellharbour. 10 ft containers.
- Used wind-and-watertight boxes for industrial sites at Port Kembla, Unanderra and Kembla Grange, where the container is a lockable store and appearance matters less than the padlock. Used containers.
- Site cabins — offices, crib rooms, toilets and drying rooms for builders working escarpment and coastal sites where there is no room to build a shed. Cabins for sale.
- Containers for export, for anyone packing cargo out through Port Kembla or consolidating a shipment. Export containers.
Salt air, and what it does to a box
Anything within a few kilometres of the coast collects salt, and salt is rust's best friend. A new or one-trip container holds its paint far longer than a fifteen-year-old box, and even then, hosing the roof and walls down a few times a year makes a measurable difference to how long it lasts. If you are storing tools or furniture rather than site gear, condensation is the other thing that bites — warm days, cold nights and a sealed steel box make water, and there is a straightforward way to manage it.
Working out which unit fits the block
Tell us the suburb and what the access looks like — driveway width, slope, trees, overhead wires — and we will tell you what will physically go in and which truck to send. If a 20 ft will not fit, a 10 ft or a flat pack unit often will, and we would rather sell you the smaller box than take an order we know will end with a crane and a damaged fence. Give us a call on +61 480 837 857 or use the contact page. If the site is in Sydney and you are weighing up which side of the trip you buy on, our Sydney delivery page covers that end of the run.
