Annie Caulfield's Irish family frequently told her a tall tale of a uncle who'd been banished to Australia, found fame and fortune as a jockey and even had a championship cup and a race course named after him. Was there any truth in this at all? And even more important, was there any money in it?
Annie embarks on a comical, helter-skelter quest to unravel fact from fiction in the well-spun family tale of glories and possible inheritances vanished down under. On her travels round Australia she has a series of startling, sometimes downright bizarre encounters with local people - and a lot of trouble with the local wildlife. Not always pretty, but full of dayglo colour, the individuals she meet give a striking 3D snapshot of modern Australia, and shed light on a past full of contradictions and complexities. Funny, touching and sometimes tragic, Annie Caulfield's journey, following her own strand through the history of the Irish in Australia, unravels much more than she bargained for.