This book is an introduction to the land "down under" which has winter when we have summer, night when we have day; a land with snowy mountain peaks where a vast hydroelectric scheme is being developed; a land of fierce and hostile desert, of diamonds and pearls, of sheep and cattle ranches, of kangaroos and laughing birds called kookaburras.

It is also a land of exciting people. We meet early pioneers who blazed their way over mountains to discover gold and fought for their rights to it. We learn how a tough, independent democracy was born in the goldfields and how the pioneer spirit persists today. We visit remote homesteads where runways are as commonplace as our driveways, and meet the flying doctors and mailmen who land there. We watch a corroboree, a campfire dance of Australia's Aborigines, a people whom the government is trying to help keep their ancient arts, yet learn to live in the modern world.

When it comes time to fly home, we leave with the feeling that the future of this only country that takes up an entire continent will be "dinky dye," the Australian way of saying "A-okay."

From the book