10ft10ft 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.
Humpty Doo, NT
Shipping containers Humpty Doo
The rural area south-east of Darwin is where the Top End goes for room. Humpty Doo, Howard Springs, Virginia, Bees Creek, Coolalinga, Berry Springs and the blocks strung along the Arnhem and Stuart Highways are acreage country: woodland, mango orchards, horse paddocks, nurseries and houses set well back from gravel roads. Containers are everywhere out here because a steel box suits the life. What makes a rural delivery work is rarely the container itself. It is the culvert at the front gate, the length of the drive, whether anyone is home, and which month it is.
- Stock usually drawn from
- a Darwin depot in the Berrimah area, trucked out the Stuart and Arnhem Highways to the rural area
- What sets the timing
- Darwin depot stock, the state of your driveway and the wet season — the date is confirmed when you place the order
- Likely truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft on firm gravel drives; side loader or crane truck for 40ft, packing sheds and anywhere a tilt cannot turn
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.
Start here if you are working out what to order.
Buying or hiring a container in Humpty Doo
- What you can buy or hire here
- 10ft, 20ft and 40ft — general purpose, high cube, side opening, refrigerated and dangerous goods — in new single-trip, cargo-worthy used or as-is, to buy or to hire. Delivered to Humpty Doo and the district around it.
- How you get a delivered price
- Send the form below or ring 1300 467 776. The container and the cartage to your address come back as one figure from a person — nothing on this page calculates it.
- What we need from you
- The delivery suburb or postcode, what is going in it, roughly when, and ideally three photos of the entry. Send three photos of the site with your enquiry and we can usually tell you the truck and the timing straight back.
- What changes availability and delivery
- Which yard is holding the size and grade you want, the truck your site can take — the site and the carrier decide that, not the container — and what is already travelling that way. Timing on this page is indicative; the actual date comes with the quote.
Request a delivered price1300 467 776
Cornubia is the only yard you can walk into — ring first. Everywhere else, ask for photographs of the actual unit before delivery, or inspection by arrangement at a partner depot.
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 Humpty Doo
Priced with delivery to your address - one call, one number.
10ft
20ft20ft 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.
40ft40ft Shipping Containers
You have the space, the approach is genuinely open, and you want the most storage per dollar the site will allow.
The jobs they turn up on locally
Around Humpty Doo we deliver containers for packing, carton and equipment storage on the mango orchards through Humpty Doo, Lambells Lagoon and Acacia Hills, bore pump and irrigation spares, slashers, mowers and machinery on acreage blocks at Howard Springs, Virginia, Bees Creek and Girraween, feed and tack on horse properties, nursery and market garden stores around Berry Springs and Darwin River, workshop and stock storage for the trades and small businesses around Coolalinga, lock-up at fishing camps out toward the Mary River and Corroboree, and household storage on blocks at Batchelor and the Coomalie district.
Access notes for this district
Rural addresses in Litchfield are easy to describe and surprisingly hard to find. Many roads look alike, block numbers are not always posted, and the house can sit hundreds of metres back behind the trees with no sign of it from the road. Give us directions from the nearest highway intersection or a GPS pin dropped on the actual spot, along with the gate code and whether any dogs will be loose. The first real obstacle is usually the crossover from the road. Most rural roads have table drains either side, and the driveway crosses the drain on a culvert pipe with fill over it. Some of those crossovers were built for a car and a horse float, not a loaded rigid truck, and the edges crumble when a heavy wheel goes near them. Tell us how wide your crossover is and whether the edges are solid. After that comes the drive itself: often long, gravel, curving between trees, with low branches and sometimes an overhead line running to the pump shed or the house. Power lines and branches set the height limit for a tilt-tray, which lifts the container well above the truck deck as it slides off. Finally there is the drop spot. A tilt-tray needs a straight, firm run to it and room to drive away afterwards, and on a block with a lot of trees that is not always where you first imagined. Through the wet, the soft parts of any block get softer, and a truck needs firm ground all the way in and out. Photos from the road, along the drive and at the spot answer nearly every question in advance.
Humpty Doo
The crossover, the drive and the gate
Most rural deliveries that go wrong do so within the first fifty metres. The culvert crossover at the road is the usual culprit, because its edges hide how narrow it is and a loaded truck turning in needs more width than a car. The gate is the second: measure the gap between the posts, not the width of the gate itself, and note whether anything sticks out, such as a letterbox, a mailbox post or a hinge. If the gate is locked or coded, tell us how to open it. If dogs will be on the block, lock them up before the truck arrives, because a driver guiding a container down off a tilt-tray cannot also watch for a dog. Think about where the container will sit in relation to the bore, the septic system and any buried water or power lines, too. A loaded truck driving over a septic tank or a shallow pipe can break it, and the owner is usually the only one who knows where those are. Mark them with a stake or a bit of flagging tape before the truck arrives.
Plenty of rural owners work in town and cannot be home for a delivery. That is fine, provided the details are settled beforehand. We need a phone number that will be answered on the day, a photo of the exact spot with something marking it, and the gate arrangements. A neighbour who can meet the driver is even better. If the spot is not ready, or the ground has gone soft after a storm, it is better to ring and move the booking than to leave a truck to guess. Our Darwin stock sits a short run away, so moving a date is not the end of the world.
On the ground
Mango season and the farm calendar
Mangoes shape the rural area's year. Flowering, spraying and then harvest bring pickers, bins and packing crews onto the orchards, and the packing sheds and access roads are at their busiest while the fruit is coming off. A container delivery in the middle of that is an interruption nobody on a farm wants. Aim to have it in before harvest, or once the last fruit has gone to market, and put it somewhere that will not be in the way of bins and trucks next season. Growers use containers for cartons, trays, packaging and equipment, and those need to stay dry and clean, so ventilation and a well-sealed door matter more than they might in a shed.
Farm chemicals are a separate question. Sprays and fertilisers come with their own rules on bunding, airflow and signage, and a plain dry-freight unit does not satisfy those simply because it locks. Check what applies to your operation before deciding that a container is the answer, and if it is, ask about a unit built for dangerous goods. The same thinking applies to fuel for pumps and machinery: keep only what you need, store it upright, and keep it away from ignition sources.
Horse properties and hobby farms have calmer calendars but similar needs. Feed, tack, rugs and saddles go mouldy quickly in the wet if a container is sealed up with no airflow, and rodents will find a gap in a door seal if there is grain inside. Vents, pallets, sealed feed bins and a quick check of the door rubbers before each wet season keep a container useful for years. Place it where you can reach it with a ute and a trailer in all weathers, not just where it looks tidy in the dry.
Worth knowing
Fire season, gamba grass and the ground around the box
Late in the dry season the rural area burns. Grass that grew head-high through the wet dries out, and gamba grass in particular grows tall and dense and burns very hot. Rural blocks in Litchfield are expected to keep firebreaks, and the area around a container deserves the same care. Keep the grass slashed around it, do not stack timber, fuel or rubbish against it, and do not put it where a fire front would run straight into it. A steel container is not protection from a grass fire. The steel gets extremely hot, and anything inside can be damaged or lost. Treat it as secure storage and keep the ground around it clean.
The same planning helps with the wet that follows. Put the container on the higher, firmer part of the block, clear of the low ground where water lies after heavy rain, and on pads so the floor sits off the ground. The roof sheds rain, yet sheet water crossing a paddock will creep under the doors, and a unit with nothing inside it can be lifted and carried off by a flood. Whether a container that stays on the block needs a permit or an engineered tie-down is a question for Litchfield Council and a building certifier. Give 1300 467 776 a ring with the lot and road name and what the box is for, and the rural cartage is built into the one price.
What delivery to Humpty Doo costs
Delivery is quoted with the container. It moves with the distance, the truck the site needs and how hard the last thirty metres are, so we price it per job rather than publish a figure that would be wrong for half the addresses here.
Nearby towns we cover
We also deliver to Howard Springs, Coolalinga, Virginia, Berry Springs, Batchelor, Palmerston and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Humpty Doo
My block is on a gravel road off the Arnhem Highway. Can a truck get in?
Most of the time, yes. What decides it is the crossover over the table drain, the gate width, the drive and the drop spot. Measure the gap between the gate posts, check whether the crossover edges are solid, and note any low branches or power lines along the drive. Send photos from the road, along the drive and at the spot. Through the wet, the answer can change after a heavy storm, so we may suggest waiting for the ground to firm up.
Can you deliver if nobody is home?
Yes, as long as everything is arranged beforehand. We need a phone number that will be answered on the day, the gate code or key arrangements, dogs secured, and a clear photo of the exact spot with something marking it. A neighbour who can meet the driver is even better. If the spot turns out to be unsuitable on the day, the driver will ring rather than guess.
Do you deliver to Berry Springs and Batchelor?
Yes. Berry Springs, Darwin River and the rest of the Litchfield rural area are all covered, and Batchelor is further down the Stuart Highway toward Litchfield National Park. Council rules differ: Humpty Doo, Howard Springs and Berry Springs are in the Litchfield Council area, while Batchelor is in the Coomalie council area. Check with the right one for your block before ordering.
Can I store mango cartons and packing gear in a container?
Yes, and many growers do. Keep cartons and packaging dry and clean with vents at both ends, pallets under the stacks, and a door that seals properly. Ask for a cargo-worthy or new single-trip unit, because those grades are sold wind and watertight, while as-is units are not. Keep farm chemicals out of that container: storing sprays properly has its own requirements.
Can you get a container out to a fishing camp toward the Mary River?
In the dry season, usually yes, if the track to the camp suits a loaded truck. East along the Arnhem Highway the country drops onto the Adelaide River and Mary River floodplains, and low sections of road and tracks can go under after heavy rain, so wet season deliveries out there are often not possible. Tell us the location, the track surface and whether there is anything on site to help unload, and we will tell you what is realistic. Plan these for the dry.
Room for more.Less mucking around.
Get a price
Get a delivered price sorted
We deliver to Humpty Doo 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.
Or skip the form and ring us — 1300 467 776, Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm, Sat 8am-12pm