The Dreamtime story: from Cairns hostel to travel desk

Once upon a time there were two independent travellers. Steve from Northern Ireland, Sally from the north of England. In 1987, in a San Diego YHA diner, he leaned across to ask the date. They caught a bus to the Mexican border the next morning. Mexico, then New Zealand — canoes, Waitomo, the feeling that the world was an oyster with a youth-hostel lock.

They lived and worked in Australia to fund the next leg. A pregnancy shortened a two-year overland plan and did not cancel it. Indonesia on foot, Malaysia by thumb, Thailand on a bamboo raft. Almost seven months pregnant they took a late flight from the Philippines toward home through China, Russia and Eastern Europe so their first daughter, Sorcha, could be born near family.

A driving holiday through Irish independent hostels planted the idea: one day, a house of their own for travellers. They went back on the road with a six-month-old — camel country in India, first steps in a Nepalese temple — and later, in a Kombi, found a dilapidated Queenslander on the wrong side of the Cairns railway tracks. They restored it. They called it Dreamtime.

What the house was

Cnr Bunda and Terminus, Cairns Central. Twin, double, and small share rooms. A pool, a tropical garden, barbecues, pizza nights, movies in the courtyard. An in-house tour desk that booked the reef, the Daintree, and the bus passes south. Free-call airport pick-up. A reputation, the old homepage said, built on friendly personal service and word of mouth. Hostelworld later ranked it number one in Australia more than once. One of a kind, not one of a chain.

Wednesday barbecues sent money to Friends of Himalayan Children. The place was never only a bed.

What remains on this site

We are not taking bookings for a bunk. We are keeping the desk: Cairns as a base, the reef without a rush, the east-coast hop, and the hostel argument. The about page is the short version. This is the long one.

Welcome to our Dreamtime. Happy safe travels — the old sign-off still holds.