'What about it, kids? Shall we head out for the bush and a bit o' freedom?'
So starts the story of a remarkable journey. At the age of 6, Kerry McGinnis loses her mother. Her grief-stricken father, Mac, is left with 4 young children to raise. After a desperate attempt to manage alone, Mac gathers up his family and leaves the city to go droving. For the next 15 years, the McGinnis clan travels the continent, droving, horse breaking and living off the land. Schoolrooms, comfort and civilisation are a long way off as Kerry grows up in the harsh outback, where the animals are often her closest friends. Wild adventures and strange encounters colour their days, and by night their father tells tall tales around the campfire. With the memory of her absent mother ever present, Kerry begins her difficult journey to young womanhood. In this stirring memoir, Kerry McGinnis gives us a sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, but always passionate depiction of the ending of childhood and the beginning of adult life.