Jill goes to Australia to go showjumping with the Heyward family. She had been told that her father died when she was a young child, but shortly before she leaves her mother tells her that her father is still alive and living in Australia. Struggling to cope with the idea of having a real father and having been deceived throughout her childhood, she is thrown into the family life of the Heywards. Norah Heyward, a young woman of her own age, has a new boyfriend who is deemed entirely unsuitable by her family and JIll is drawn into the drama as she struggles in an environment that is totally different to anything that she has experienced before.
She attends a showjumping event at Bowral and then goes to visit her father in the Snowy Mountains. They go deep into the bush to hunt for an escaped mare who has joined the wild bush horses. Riding through the mountains she experiences life far beyond civilisation.