It s 1891. Emma Fox is a young orphan, destitute and alone in a vast, undeveloped country, searching for her past and to fulfil a promise made to her dying mother. Charles Paignton is an English migrant determined to build a better life in this challenging new world where bravery is necessary to achieve happiness. Their paths converge along the Overland Telegraph Line as they battle the uncompromising Australian Outback to seek out their desires at the Arltunga Goldfields. Pursued by cultural prejudice, a vindictive drover and the perverse Australian weather, the two manage to capture love, loss and new opportunity along the way, learning that their present is just as important as their past, or their future. Sometimes the only way to survive is to step off the track.