The desk
About Dream Time Travel
Dream Time Travel started as Dreamtime Travellers Rest: a small, independent Cairns backpackers in a bright Queenslander, family-owned since 1990, with a tour desk that booked reef boats, Daintree 4WDs and east-coast bus passes for people who asked good questions.
The Dreamtime story
The original about page told it as a true travel story. Steve from Northern Ireland and Sally from the north of England met in a San Diego YHA diner in 1987 when he leaned over to ask the date. They crossed into Mexico the next morning, later canoed New Zealand parks, black-water rafted Waitomo, and kept moving until a baby shortened a two-year overland plan. They still hiked Indonesia, hitchhiked Malaysia and bamboo-rafted Thailand, then flew almost seven months pregnant from the Philippines toward home via China, Russia and Eastern Europe.
A driving holiday through Irish independent hostels planted the idea of opening their own house for travellers. Back in Australia, in a Kombi, they found a dilapidated Queenslander on the wrong side of the Cairns railway tracks. Restoration, weekly barbecues, pizza nights and a reputation for personal service followed. Hostelworld readers later voted the place number one in Australia more than once. The house was never meant to be one of a chain.
What this site is now
The hostel years are history. The voice is not. This Capes-tier rebuild keeps the old beat — reef, rainforest, bus passes, where to sleep — and widens it into reported guides for the rest of the country. We write for independent travellers, families who want a quieter beach, and anyone who would rather hear “book ahead in October” than “bucket list”.
Read the editorial standards, the guest-post brief, or start with the longer Dreamtime heritage essay.