Burnett Heads is twenty minutes from the middle of Bundaberg and asks for completely different things. A working port at one end, a marina, and a village of blocks sitting where the river meets the sea.
Most of what we deliver into Burnett Heads falls into three groups, and they want three different containers. It is worth separating them, because the advice that suits a contractor working at the port is close to useless for someone storing a boat behind a house on the river side.
The port precinct and the industrial land behind it are the easiest deliveries we do anywhere. Hardstand, wide access, room to swing, and nobody's shade sail over the drop point. If your container is going onto sealed ground there, the delivery is close to a non-event.
The jobs are mostly project and contractor work: site storage that has to lock, tools and consumables kept out of the weather while a job runs, spares staged near the work rather than an hour away, and overflow when a shed is full. This is also where hire rather than purchase often makes better sense — a container on site for the length of a job, gone when the job is, with none of the disposal question at the end. Twenty-foot hire starts from $27 a week, guide pricing, ex GST.
One thing worth flagging for anything near fuels, solvents or oils: that is a dangerous goods unit, not a general purpose one. Ventilated, bunded, and built to pass an inspection. Tell us the class and the volumes and we will match it.
The other steady run here is marine. Charter and commercial operators, and a lot of private owners who have run out of room in the garage and would rather not leave gear on the vessel.
What goes in: outboards and spares, ropes, anchors and ground tackle, safety gear, dive and fishing kit, covers and canvas between seasons, and trailers' worth of the odds and ends that accumulate around a boat. A 20ft suits most of it. If you are storing anything upright, or want to walk in and work rather than stack and shuffle, the extra foot of roof on a high cube is money well spent.
Grade matters more here than it does inland. Anything living outside within sight of the water should start at cargo-worthy — checked, and sold wind and watertight — rather than an as-is unit, which is cheaper but is not sold as watertight and generally comes with existing corrosion you have then paid for. We have written the full version of that argument in salt air, steel and the Coral Coast, and every word of it applies at the Heads.
The older streets are the part that needs a conversation before we book a truck. Narrow frontages, mature street trees, powerlines that look higher than they are until a sidelifter puts its legs out, and driveways that were laid out for a car rather than a rigid.
Ground is the other variable. Away from the sealed areas a lot of this country is sand or river flat, and soft ground under a loaded truck is its own problem. If there is a slab, a compacted driveway or a firm pad, that is usually where the container should go — and if it is not where you wanted it, tell us early, because a crane truck can often place it over a fence line or down a side access where nothing else will fit. That costs more than a tilt-tray, so it is worth establishing beforehand rather than on the day.
Send a photo down the driveway and one of the spot with your enquiry. It settles the question in seconds and it is the single best thing you can do to make sure the delivery happens once instead of twice.
This is the part we will not skip. Burnett Heads sits where the river meets the sea, and a fair bit of it is low. Storm tide and a river coming down at the same time is the local scenario, and it is the reason where a container sits matters more than what it is made of.
To be plain about it: a cargo-worthy unit is sold watertight against weather coming down on it. That is not a promise about water coming up, and nobody should sell you one as though it were. We have set out the whole argument — the seals, the buoyancy, and what a container genuinely offers instead — in containers, the Burnett, and what steel will and won't do in a flood, and it is worth ten minutes if you are buying for a block near the water.
The practical version for the Heads: choose the highest part of the block rather than the most convenient one, sit it on blocks, sleepers or pavers under the four corner castings, and leave a truck enough room to come back in. That last point is the one people forget, and it is the whole advantage of steel over a shed here — with a bit of warning, a container can be picked up and taken somewhere higher.
Fifteen minutes, twice a year, and it is the difference between a unit that looks tired at eight years and one that is still sound at twenty. Hose the salt off, roof and door end especially. Wire-brush and paint any scratch that has started browning, when you see it rather than next year. Grease the locking bars, cams and hinges, because salt seizes hardware long before it eats panels. Check the door seals and replace perished rubber, which is cheap. And vent it — warm humid air sealed in during the day condenses on the cold roof overnight and rains back down on your gear, which is the damage nobody plans for.
Guide only, ex GST. Used 20ft from $2,200, new from $3,300. Used 40ft from $2,600, new from $5,500. High cube used from $3,400, new from $5,500. 10ft from $4,350 used — worth knowing that a 10ft costs more than a 20ft, because they are cut down and rebuilt rather than made that size, so if the space takes a 20ft that is the better buy every time. Hire from $27 a week on a 20ft.
Freight is quoted with the container, not published, because at the Heads it depends entirely on whether we are putting it on hardstand at the port or threading a truck down a sandy driveway.
Ring 07 4152 3388 and tell us the street and the job. Delivery detail for the area is on the Burnett Heads page, and the rest of our run is on the delivery areas page.
What growers and graziers between Gayndah, Mundubbera, Biggenden and Monto actually buy, which grade is worth the money two hours inland, and the access questions that decide a North Burnett delivery.
An honest rundown of what a shipping container actually protects you from around Bundaberg, where height beats sealing every time, and how to use one as storage you can move before a rise.
Why containers at Bargara, Woodgate and Hervey Bay age differently to ones in town, which grade to buy near the water, and the maintenance that adds a decade.
One call, one delivered number, freight included.