10ft Shipping Containers
Side access is pinched, the setback leaves nothing to manoeuvre in, or all that is needed is a lockable spot for the mower, an air compressor and a wall of hand tools.
Mackay, QLD
Shipping containers Mackay
Mackay is the one town on this coast where three completely different customers ring in the same morning. A cane grower wants somewhere lockable for chemical before the season. A mining services outfit wants six units on a yard at Paget before a shutdown starts at Moranbah. A bloke at Blacks Beach wants his boat gear out of the weather. What ties them together is the calendar, because between the crush, the Bowen Basin schedule and the wet, there is not a lot of the year in Mackay that is not somebody's busy period.
- Delivered from
- stock we hold at a depot in Mackay, with anything not standing locally carted from the Cornubia yard
- Typical lead time
- Often 2–3 business days on a unit already in Mackay; allow a week or more if it has to come north
- Usual truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft; crane truck for 40ft and for cane-country blocks where the only approach is a headland
Every enquiry answered within one business day.You hear back from a person, not an autoresponder. Enquiries that land on a weekend are answered the next business day.
First, the things that are specific to here.
What they get used for around here
Around Mackay we deliver containers for chemical, fertiliser and irrigation fittings kept locked and dry on the cane farms through Marian, Mirani, Walkerston and the Pioneer Valley, spares and consumables for the mining services firms running gear up the corridor to Moranbah, Dysart and the Bowen Basin, tool and plant storage across the Paget industrial estate, boat, camping and fishing gear on the northern beaches at Bucasia, Eimeo and Blacks Beach, site stores on the builds through Ooralea, Rural View and Beaconsfield, and secure storage for the marine and engineering trades near the harbour.
Access, ground and the last thirty metres
Cane country dictates a lot of the driving here. The Pioneer Valley and the flats out through Marian, Mirani, Walkerston and Farleigh are laced with tramway, and a private crossing is not always at the same level as the road either side, which will hang a long truck up on the hump if the approach is short. Headlands are the working roads on a cane farm and they are built around what a tractor can turn, not around a rigid truck with six metres past the rear axle. During the crush the haul roads and the tramways are busy and a delivery that ignores that spends a lot of its window waiting. Ground on the flats is heavy alluvial river soil that carries well in the dry and holds water for a long time after it stops raining, and Mackay does not do gentle rain. In a wet season the district can take more in three days than a lot of Queensland gets in a year, and a farm track that was fine on Monday is not a proposition on Thursday. The industrial side at Paget is the easy end — hardstand, wide entries, room to swing, and usually a forklift already there — with the only real constraints being yard inductions and delivery windows on the bigger tenancies. The northern beaches are sand: Bucasia, Eimeo, Shoal Point and Blacks Beach all sit on coastal profile with salt in the air, so the ground carries poorly and setup matters more. Around town the older suburbs of West Mackay, North Mackay and East Mackay have narrower frontages, established figs and mangoes at truck height and short driveways, while the newer estates at Rural View and Ooralea bring the standard estate pattern of narrow streets, cars both sides, service pits on the kerb line and fill that has not settled. And through summer, everything gets planned with one eye on the forecast.
Grade moves the price more than size does, and it is what decides whether a unit is sold watertight — the full rundown is on the grades page.
The range
Containers we deliver to Mackay
Priced with delivery to your address - one call, one number.
20ft Shipping Containers
There is about seven metres of straight, reasonably level ground for it to sit on, and you would rather not discover in half a year that the bigger box was the answer.
40ft Shipping Containers
You have the space, the approach is genuinely open, and the aim is the largest amount of storage per dollar spent that anybody sells.
Mackay
Stock in Mackay and the run to the Basin
We hold containers at a depot in Mackay. That is the difference between a container being a same-week decision and a fortnight-long logistics exercise, and it matters more the further north you go. It also makes Mackay the practical supply point for a lot of country that has nothing of its own — the Pioneer Valley, the coast toward Sarina, and the corridor west toward the Bowen Basin mining towns where a lot of the gear and consumables that go underground are staged out of a yard at Paget first. The practical effect is that a Mackay order behaves like an ordinary purchase with a date on it, rather than a freight exercise where nobody can tell you when the truck is coming. That is not a small thing this far up the coast, and it is worth asking any supplier quoting you here whether the container they are describing is actually in town.
Seeing a unit before you order one is fine by us, it just has to be booked, because the depot runs without anybody stationed on a gate for visitors. Ring, say what you are after and when suits, and we will have someone there with the unit accessible so you can open the doors and look down the floor yourself. If getting there is not practical, photos of the actual unit are available on request and we send them before delivery. What is standing in Mackay changes week to week, so if you want something particular — a high cube, a double-door unit, a specific grade — ask at the enquiry and you will get a straight answer about whether it is here or coming.
On the ground
Cyclone season, tie-downs and honest limits
An empty shipping container is a large object with a lot of side area and not much mass, and in a serious blow that is not a good combination. Loaded, it is a very different proposition, and most containers in this district spend their lives with enough in them that the question does not come up. But if you are putting an empty or lightly loaded unit somewhere exposed and leaving it through summer, it needs to be held down, and the way to do that depends on what it is sitting on. Bolting to a slab, cyclone-rated ground anchors with turnbuckles to the corner castings, or a set of footings poured under it are all standard approaches. Where the anchoring has to be certified — anything on a commercial site, anything a builder or an insurer is going to ask about — that is an engineer's call and it should be, because the loads involved are real numbers and not a rule of thumb.
What we will not do is tell you a container is cyclone-rated on its own. It is a well-built steel box and it will handle a great deal, but its performance in a wind event is a function of how it is anchored and how it is loaded, not of the box alone. Tell us at the quote whether it is going somewhere exposed, whether it will be sitting empty for stretches, and whether anything needs certifying, and we will set it up in a way that suits rather than leaving you to work it out in November. The other half of it is what is around the unit. Loose sheeting, stacked pallets and an unsecured awning built off the side of a container do more damage in a blow than the container ever will, and they are the things worth walking around and looking at before the season starts.
Worth knowing
Wet season, and planning around it
The wet is not a nuisance in Mackay, it is a season with a name, and it changes how a delivery is scheduled rather than whether it happens. Heavy alluvial river soil across the valley and the flats carries a loaded truck comfortably when it is dry and becomes something no amount of skill gets a rigid out of once it has had a real event on it. We would far rather ring you and shift a booking by two or three days than put a truck onto a farm track or a soft block and turn a twenty-minute job into a tractor recovery and a trench across your headland. Nobody comes out ahead from that. You are standing there watching your access get chewed up and wondering who is paying for the repair, and we have a truck and a driver tied up for the rest of the day.
So through summer we leave a bit of room in out-of-town bookings and we ring you with what is happening, instead of leaving you standing at the shed all morning for a truck that was never going to make the last kilometre. Your local knowledge is worth a lot in that conversation — you know which of your crossings goes under first, whether your track holds up or turns, and where on the property stays firm no matter what. If there is hardstand near the road or a spot by the shed that never goes soft, tell us. Setting the container down there and letting you shift it in with a tractor when the ground comes good is often the cleanest way through a wet week.
What delivery to Mackay costs
We quote delivery with the container every time. It is the honest way to do it when access varies as much as it does around here.
Ring us, tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and we will tell you which grade and which truck the job needs before anyone talks money.
Other places on this run
We also deliver to Sarina, Marian, Bucasia, Proserpine, Moranbah and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Mackay
Do you have containers in Mackay or do they come up from Brisbane?
We hold stock at a depot in Mackay, so most local orders go out on a unit that is already here. Not every size and grade is standing locally every week — anything we do not have comes up from our Cornubia yard and adds meaningfully to the date, and you will be told which of those applies at the quote rather than afterwards. You are welcome to inspect before ordering; it simply has to be arranged, because the depot has no public counter and nobody waiting to open up.
Does a shipping container need to be tied down for cyclone season?
If it is going somewhere exposed and will sit empty or lightly loaded, yes. An empty container has a lot of side area and not much mass. Bolting to a slab, cyclone-rated ground anchors with turnbuckles to the corner castings, or poured footings are the usual methods, and which one suits depends on what it is standing on. Where the anchoring has to be certified — a commercial site, or anything an insurer or builder will ask about — get an engineer to specify it. We will not tell you a container is cyclone-rated on its own, because that depends on the anchoring and the load, not the box.
Can you deliver onto a cane farm in the Pioneer Valley?
Regularly. What we need to know is the approach: whether there is a tramway crossing on it and how it sits relative to the road, because a crossing that stands proud with a short run-up will hang a long truck up, and whether the headland gives a real turning area rather than a tractor-sized one. During the crush, haul road and tramway traffic affects timing. If the track will not carry a loaded truck, we set the container on firm ground near the shed or the road and you walk it in with the tractor at your convenience.
How does the wet season affect delivery around Mackay?
In town, hardly at all. Out on the flats and the valley farms it matters a great deal, because heavy river soil that carries a truck comfortably in September will not hold one after a real event, and Mackay rain is not gentle. We will ring and move a booking a couple of days rather than bog a truck on your place. Through summer we leave room in out-of-town runs and keep you posted. When you book, say what your approach crosses and how long those crossings usually stay up.
Get a price
Ask us what fits your site
We deliver to Mackay and the surrounding district. Tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and you will get a price with the cartage worked out. Every enquiry answered within one business day.
Or skip the form and ring us — 1300 467 776, Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm, Sat 8am-12pm