To escape his memories of war, Lachlan Hook builds a house in the forest near a bush town. He is joined in his fringe existence by Arthur, a local eccentric, and Ellen, a hitch-hiker and her child. They too are looking for a refuge from the wider world. The arrival of bulldozers and chainsaws shatters their carefully-balanced environment and Hook realises that there is another war to be fought on his own territory. The voices in this story are to be heard throughout Australia today in the battle for the forests.