OSPIPO
Illawarra · both directions
Sydney Airport to Kiama. One number.
Kiama is the last town on the electrified railway and the first of the genuinely long South Coast runs. The fare is $408 in either direction, at 03:00 or at midday, and it is the figure on the invoice.
- Fixed fare
- $408
- both directions, all-inclusive
- Distance
- 106 km
- by road, M1 Princes Motorway
- Typical drive
- 1h 35m
- 1 hour 35 minutes outside peak
Your fixed fare
Available- Base fare $60.00
- Distance106 km at $3.30/km $349.80
- NSW Passenger Service Levy $1.32
- Motorway tolls included
- Airport pickup and parking included
- Meet and greet inside the terminal included
- GST (10%) included
- Published corridor farecapped below the formula −$3.12
Booking lodged
The arithmetic
The whole bill, before you book.
One way and return, itemised. The return is arithmetic rather than a negotiation: doubled, ten percent off, rounded to the nearest $5, which puts a Kiama return at $735.
- Base fare $60.00
- Distance106 km at $3.30/km $349.80
- NSW Passenger Service Levy $1.32
- Motorway tolls included
- Airport pickup and parking included
- Meet and greet inside the terminal included
- GST (10%) included
- Published corridor farecapped below the formula −$3.12
- Base fare $60.00
- Distance106 km at $3.30/km $349.80
- NSW Passenger Service Levy $1.32
- Motorway tolls included
- Airport pickup and parking included
- Meet and greet inside the terminal included
- GST (10%) included
- Published corridor farecapped below the formula −$3.12
- One-way fixed total $408.00
- Return legsame chauffeur, same car $408.00
- Return discount10% off the doubled fare −$81.60
- Rounded to the nearest $5 $0.60
Both the formula and the published corridor fare are shown, because on this route they are close but not identical. The published fare sits under the formula. Where there is a gap it belongs to you, and no corridor fare on this site runs the other way.
What the fare covers
Included, and not.
Inside the published fare
- Every motorway toll on the route
- GST
- The NSW Passenger Service Levy
- Airport access and parking
- Meet and greet inside the terminal with a name sign
- Help with your bags at both ends
- Flight tracking, with the pickup moved to the actual landing time
- Two hours of waiting on international arrivals, one hour on domestic
- Child seats, fitted and checked, on request
- Bottled water and a phone charger at every seat
Not included, and never quietly added
- Meals, and any stop long enough to eat one
- Extra waiting beyond the free allowance, charged at the hourly rate agreed at booking
- Additional stops not named at booking
- Parking or entry fees at a private venue that charges them
- Anything the car physically cannot carry — see the capacity note
Departure timing
When the car has to be at your door.
Worked backwards from the flight, not forwards from a guess. Every row uses the same 95-minute drive time published at the top of this page.
| Flight departs | Terminal | Be at the airport | Pick-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 domestic | T2 / T3 | 04:00 | 02:15 |
| 07:00 international | T1 | 04:00 | 02:15 |
| 08:00 domestic | T2 / T3 | 06:00 | 04:15 |
| 09:30 international | T1 | 06:30 | 04:25 |
| 13:00 domestic | T2 / T3 | 11:00 | 08:55 |
| 17:00 international | T1 | 14:00 | 12:15 |
| 21:00 domestic | T2 / T3 | 19:00 | 17:15 |
Worked from 95 minutes of driving, plus 10 minutes to load at the kerb, plus 3 hours inside the terminal for an international departure and 2 hours for a domestic one. A 20-minute allowance is added where the drive runs through the morning peak. Arriving instead of departing? Then none of this applies: give the flight number and the pickup moves to the actual landing time, with 2 hours free at T1 and 1 hour at T2 and T3.
The corridor
The drive, end to end.
The first fifty minutes belong to Sydney and Wollongong and nothing about them is specific to Kiama: General Holmes Drive, the Sutherland Shire on the Princes Highway, the motorway from Waterfall through the Royal National Park, then Mount Ousley down into the Illawarra.
South of Wollongong the road opens out. It runs behind Dapto and Albion Park, past the regional airport at Albion Park Rail, and then the escarpment closes in again at Dunmore. Minnamurra is the first exit on the Kiama side, Kiama Downs and Bombo follow, and the town itself has been off the through road for decades.
That bypass is the reason Kiama does not feel like a highway town. It also means the exit you want depends on which side of the harbour you are staying: the Bombo and Kiama Downs turn-offs serve the northern beaches, the Kiama exit serves the town centre, the harbour and Blowhole Point, and Kiama Heights is a separate turn again further south.
Blowhole Point is the tightest driving in town — a working harbour car park with a lighthouse in the middle of it and a blowhole at the end. At 03:00 it is empty. At 11:00 on a Sunday in January it is not, and a pickup there is set on the Blowhole Point Road kerb rather than in the car park.
Inland is a different road again. Jamberoo, Saddleback Mountain and the Minnamurra Falls end of Budderoo add fifteen minutes of narrow, unlit lane where house numbers are not visible from a car at night. Those pickups work best with a photograph of the gate sent at booking.
From September to April Kiama runs on weddings. The Pavilion at Blowhole Point, the Sebel on Shoalhaven Street and a run of private clifftop properties fill most Saturdays, and Sunday morning is when the guests fly home. There is one car here, so a Saturday in that window is worth claiming early.
Weekday morning peak
The Shire section between the airport and Waterfall carries most of the delay, northbound between 07:00 and 09:30. The timing table below already adds twenty minutes for it.
Wedding Saturdays, September to April
The town centre and the Blowhole Point car park fill from mid-afternoon. A departure that leaves from the reception rather than the hotel is worth naming at booking so the car is on the right kerb.
January in the Kiama LGA
Bombo, Kiama Downs and Minnamurra beach traffic backs up onto the exits from about 09:30. Add fifteen minutes to a late-morning departure and nothing at all to a pre-dawn one.
Southerly weather on the coast
The blowhole draws a crowd in a big southerly swell and the harbour car park stops working as a pickup point. The car waits on Blowhole Point Road instead, which is a two-minute walk and no change to the fare.
Pick-up
Where the car waits in Kiama.
Named kerbs rather than a suburb. If the address you need is not on this list it still works — this is the detail that saves a phone call at 03:00, not the limit of where the car goes.
The Sebel Kiama Harbourside, Shoalhaven Street
Under the entrance canopy. Bags come out to the car rather than the other way round, and a pre-dawn departure is arranged with the night desk the evening before.
The Pavilion, Blowhole Point Road
The wedding venue on the point. For a departure the morning after, the car waits at the Blowhole Point Road kerb rather than in the harbour car park.
Kiama Harbour cabins and Blowhole Point Holiday Park
The cabins sit inside the point itself. Give the cabin number at booking — the internal roads are unsigned and identical in the dark.
Easts Beach Holiday Park, south of the town
The gate is shut overnight. A pickup before opening is arranged through the office the day before, and the car meets you at the gate rather than at the site.
Kiama station, Bong Bong Street
For anyone coming down on the last electric service of the night and continuing south. The car is at the street entrance, not the platform end.
Jamberoo and Saddleback Mountain
Unlit lanes, long driveways and gates without numbers. Send a photograph of the entrance at booking and the driveway is found first time.
Honestly compared
Against the alternatives, honestly.
Kiama has the best train service on this whole corridor, and the table says so. A comparison that always ends in our favour is not a comparison.
| Option | What it costs | Roughly | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| OSPIPO chauffeur | $408 fixed | 1h 35m | One car. If it is already booked at your hour, you cannot have it. |
| Train, South Coast Line | An Opal fare plus $17.92 | 2h 45m | Kiama is the southern end of the electrified line, so this is a real option in daylight. It is also a change at Wolli Creek with your luggage, an airport station access fee outside the Opal caps, and a first service that does not exist early enough for a dawn departure. |
| Rideshare | Variable, surges | 1h 35m | A driver who accepts a 106 km job at 11am on a Tuesday will often be cheaper than this car. At 03:00 the multiplier does what it likes, and long pre-dawn jobs out of the airport get declined rather than priced. |
| Metered taxi | Not knowable in advance | 1h 35m | The meter runs on distance and on waiting, and tolls and the airport charge are added at the end. On a run this length the number arrives well after the journey does. |
| Drive and park | $51.00 to $62.00 a day | 1h 35m each way | Sensible for two nights. For two weeks the car park costs more than the chauffeur did, and it puts you on Mount Ousley in the dark at both ends of a long-haul flight. |
In daylight, travelling alone, with a bag you can lift, take the train — Kiama is the one town on this page where that advice is genuinely good. The case for this car is a 02:30 pickup, a wedding party flying out on a Sunday morning, or a flight that will not be repeated if it is missed.
Nearby
South of Kiama.
Also collected from
This route
Questions about this run.
Because Kiama Downs is closer to the airport by road, and the ladder is built on road distance. Kiama Downs is published at $397 and Minnamurra at $393, and both are separate rows rather than a discount on this one.
The same logic runs the other way south of here. Gerringong is $450 and Berry is $480, and nothing about the hour of the day or the day of the week changes any of them.
In daylight, yes, and it is the cheapest way to do this by a wide margin. Kiama is the southern end of the electrified South Coast Line, which makes it the last town on this corridor with a frequent, ordinary train.
It stops being usable at the top of the morning. The first service of the day does not reach the airport in time for a flight before about 09:00, and it involves a change at Wolli Creek with your bags. That is the run this car exists for.
Regularly, and mostly the morning after rather than the night of. The Pavilion at Blowhole Point, the Sebel on Shoalhaven Street and the private clifftop properties around Kiama Heights and Bombo are all the same $408.
What cannot be done is a fleet. There is one car and one chauffeur, so a wedding party leaving together needs a coach operator. Guests leaving in ones and twos across a Sunday morning is exactly what this car is for, and those Saturdays fill months ahead.
Yes, and it is easier if you help. Send a photograph of the gate or the letterbox at booking. Those roads have no street lighting, no footpath and no visible numbering, and a driveway that is obvious in daylight is a guess at 03:00.
The fare does not change for the climb. Jamberoo is published at $410 and is quoted as its own row; a Saddleback Mountain address is quoted to the address.
On Blowhole Point Road, not in the car park. The harbour car park is a working one with a lighthouse, a fishing fleet and a blowhole at the end of it, and in a southerly swell or on a January morning there is nowhere in it to stand a car.
If you are staying in the harbour cabins, give the cabin number at booking. The internal roads there are unsigned and look identical before dawn.
The fare ladder files Kiama under the Illawarra, and that is the answer that matters here, because it is the ladder that sets the price. Kiama is its own local government area sitting between the two.
The practical line is the fare, not the label. North of Kiama the numbers step down through Minnamurra and Shellharbour; south of it they step up through Gerringong, Berry and Nowra. The old version of this site called Kiama three different regions on three different pages, which helped nobody.
No. This is a sedan, and a board or a boxed bike does not go in it. Three adults, two large checked suitcases and three carry-on bags is the honest limit.
Being told that now is better than finding it out at the kerb at 04:00. If that is your booking, say so and you will be pointed at an operator who can carry it.
$462, fixed, and that figure covers Circular Quay, Barangaroo, Martin Place, Darling Harbour and every other CBD address. Sydney Airport is the flagship run on this site, not the limit of it.
Beyond the CBD zone the fare is the CBD figure plus the published per-kilometre rate for the extra distance, quoted before you book and locked when you do.
No question matches that. Try a shorter word, or ask the concierge.
Book it
$408 down. And $408 back.
Two addresses, a date and a time. The receipt appears before you type a name, and no card is asked for at any point.
Your fixed fare
Available- Base fare $60.00
- Distance106 km at $3.30/km $349.80
- NSW Passenger Service Levy $1.32
- Motorway tolls included
- Airport pickup and parking included
- Meet and greet inside the terminal included
- GST (10%) included
- Published corridor farecapped below the formula −$3.12
Booking lodged