Alma can't stand to have one more birthday without seeing her estranged daughter, Elizabeth, who lives in Sydney, Australia.

A small town in Australia, in the late 1950s: Brownie and Lola are deeply in love. But because they are under-age, their parents are against their relationship and try to separate them.

Mercy Steele remembers her close-to idyllic childhood in rural Queensland in the twenties. Images of the landscape, abundant foods and fruits interspersed with reconstructed snatches of the way things were, show a simple life that belies the tragedy which her family later suffered. Constructed images of a lush and beautiful place suggest an uncomplicated life of harmony and abundance reminiscent of a late 19th century European way of seen Antipodean landscapes.