Shipping containers Wondai
Timber and grain in roughly equal measure, strung along the Bunya Highway with the mills and the silos as the landmarks. Wondai jobs tend to be practical and repeat — the same properties and businesses coming back for a second and a third unit as the operation grows.
- Postcode
- 4606
- Local government
- South Burnett Regional Council
- The run
- About 30 km north of Kingaroy on the Bunya Highway
- Usual vehicle
- Tilt-tray; sidelifter where there is mill or silo hardstand
Why containers end up on Wondai blocks
In and around Wondai containers mostly hold grain, seed and fertiliser storage on the cropping country either side of the highway, timber, tooling and consumable storage around the mill and the engineering shops, secure yard storage for the transport and earthmoving operators, hay and fencing on the grazing blocks west towards Charlestown, and overflow storage for the businesses along Mackenzie Street. Different jobs, identical conversation: which grade, what size, and whether the ground and the approach suit a tilt-tray, a sidelifter or a crane.
| Unit | Used from | New from |
|---|---|---|
| 10ft Containers | $4,350 | $6,400 |
| 20ft Containers | $2,200 | $3,300 |
| 40ft Containers | $2,600 | $5,500 |
Prices shown are a guide and exclude GST. Grade, condition and stock all move them. The run to Wondai is priced with the unit rather than billed separately afterwards.
Storage that follows the harvest
Grain and seed storage is the recurring reason a container turns up on a Wondai property, and it is worth being specific about grade. Anything going in that has to come out saleable needs a cargo-worthy unit at minimum, checked wind and watertight before it is loaded. As-is units are cheaper again and are not sold watertight — they are the right buy for steel, drums and fencing wire and the wrong buy for anything you are going to sell.
Ventilation is the other specification worth getting right at order time rather than retrofitting. A sealed steel box with warm days and cold nights will sweat, and condensation on the roof of a container holding bagged product is a problem that looks exactly like a leak and is not one.
Vents fitted before delivery cost very little. Vents cut in afterwards cost a tradesman's day.
The mills, the yards and the businesses in town
The timber and engineering side of Wondai buys containers as lockable extensions of a yard that has run out of room. Tooling, consumables, spare parts, the gear that is too valuable to leave out and not used often enough to justify shed space.
For those jobs the surface is already right, so the only real decision is size and door configuration. A 40ft is the cheapest volume, but with cargo doors at one end the far half becomes a place things go to be forgotten. Where a forklift is working the unit daily, a side opening container earns the difference back inside a year.
Two 20s instead of one 40 is the other common answer, and it is a better one than people expect when the two loads are genuinely different things.
The Wondai access picture
Wondai is one of the more straightforward runs on the Bunya Highway, largely because so much of the work goes onto hardstand that already exists. Mill yards and silo aprons are built for B-doubles, which means a sidelifter can place a 40ft with no argument at all and a tilt-tray has more room than it knows what to do with. Where it gets interesting is off the sealed surface. The cropping paddocks either side of the highway are worked ground, and worked ground has no crust — a truck that is fine on the headland can find itself in trouble twenty metres in, particularly on a fresh cultivation. Placement on the headland or a gateway pad is nearly always the better answer, and moving a container thirty metres later with the tractor is cheap compared with a recovery. In town the streets are wide and the blocks are generous by district standards, so residential deliveries here are among the easiest we do. The exception is the older housing behind the main street, where side drives narrow and a few gum limbs sit lower over the road than they look from a car.
Aside from the local conditions it comes down to footing, approach length and headroom. Where one of those looks borderline, a photo or two decides it before anyone books a vehicle. Full detail in getting a container onto your block.
Wondai — common questions
Can you place a 40ft container at a mill or silo yard in Wondai?
Yes, and those are among the easier 40ft placements in the district. Yards built to take B-doubles give a sidelifter everything it needs — a surface that will hold its legs, room to stand up and a straight approach. Confirm the exact spot and the access hours when you book and it is a single, uncomplicated movement.
Can a truck drive into a paddock to place a container?
Sometimes, but it is rarely the best plan on worked ground. Cultivated soil has no crust, so a vehicle that is perfectly fine on the headland can get into trouble a short distance in. Placing on the headland or on a gateway pad and shifting the unit later with a tractor is cheaper and far more predictable than a recovery.
Do containers need vents for grain or bagged product?
It is strongly worth doing. Hot days and cold nights make a sealed steel box sweat, and condensation on the underside of the roof drips onto whatever is below it and looks exactly like a leak. Vents fitted before delivery are inexpensive; cutting them in later is a tradesman's day. Specify them when you order.
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