In the wild Gulf country of rthwestern Queensland, there s a cattle station Barra Creek on a tributary of the crocodile-infested Norman River. It s 1963 and Sally Mitchell, the well-bred daughter of a wealthy New Zealand sheep farmer, is on her way to England with her friend Pru. When the young women stopover in Sydney their plans go awry. Sally impulsively takes a job as a governess at Barra Creek, and when the mail plane that flew her there takes off she finds herself left in a different world. One dominated by the overpowering John Monroe and his strict and proper wife Lorna. Here Sally s life changes forever. The challenges of coping with her three young charges, wild stockmen, the heat and the Wet, brumby musters and cattle rushes all pale beside a great passion, a great loss and a gruesome death.