This beautifully crafted story celebrates history and nature from the year dot to the present through its contemporary characters – musician Ned Chisholm and tourism industry sister Bella. Both are licking wounds when they set off on separate soul-searching trips to Queensland following the accidental death of their brilliant surgeon father.
After his own near-fatal car collision with a dead cow – which was being fed on by a cauldron of seven-foot-wingspan raptors – Ned holes up at a remote campsite under the stars. Having always been in the shadow of his disapproving father, he strikes up a silent but incredibly strong bond with a 70-something Vietnam veteran.
At night he jams at the pub to raise money for the James Cook Museum, where a cache of migrant letters from early missionaries has fired his creative juices for a musical. When Bella bumps into him at a gig, discord rains between the pair, but as Ned reveals a haunting family secret, new beginnings beckon like a bowerbird for them both.
