To get bread or milk, Kembla Heights resident Sarah Widodo has to drive seven kilometres to Figtree or Unanderra.
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Since the general store closed in 2010, the roughly 1000 residents of Mount Kembla have to make the steep journey down the hill for the simplest of items.
But, Ms Widodo has plans to change that.
Her and her husband Catur are in the final stages of preparing a retro-style caravan to serve the village with coffee, treats and basic pantry staples.
The vision is to create a place where villagers can meet, swap produce and stories and create a community hub.
It's a plan that Ms Widodo has been working on for the past six years.
"I was ready to hand over 12 months of rent for a building down the bottom that used to be the old gym, but unfortunately, I hit a brick wall," she said.
Setting up a store in Mount Kembla is tricky as almost all the land parcels in the suburb are zoned C4 Environmental Living.
The zoning is intended to protect the semi-rural style of the village but largely prohibits any kind of commercial enterprise, apart from bed and breakfasts and home-based businesses.
This meant that Ms Widodo had to look for an alternative.
With the assistance of council planning officer, Ms Widodo found that a coffee cart-style van set up on private property would be allowed, and would be permitted on council land with development consent.
Originally, based on feedback from the community Ms Widodo thought that setting up at the Kembla Heights Bowling Club would be the perfect location, but with Kembla Heights at risk of being cut off due to landslides on Cordeaux Road and Harry Graham Drive, the decision was made to locate the van in Mount Kembla village.
"Village feedback says place it down the bottom, it's more convenient for the residents and we also have 400 miners that are doing four shift changes a day," Ms Widodo said.
In addition to coffee from Delano Coffee Roasters and basic cafe food, Ms Widodo said with many villages growing their own fruit and vegetables or raising chickens for eggs, the van would be a location for swapping local produce.
"We've got a local lady that wins prizes at the Royal Easter Show, so she'll supply the honey. Then if you're growing tomatoes, come and bring them down, trade them for a cup of coffee or something like that."
The hope is to have the van up and running by the time of the Wollongong 2022 road cycling race and in future provide a place for visitors to Mount Kembla's bushwalking and mountain biking tracks to get to know the locals.
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