In the wild Gulf country of northwestern 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 stop over 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 herthree young charges, wild stockmen, the heat and the Wet, brumby musters and cattle rushes all pale beside ta great passion, a great loss and a gruesome death.

Only Lorna knows the truth of the death and of a errible injustice. Now, in 2003, she searches for the former governess to finally set things right and share her horrific secret.