Cornwall, the 1870s. Emily Boyce, daughter of a pretentious parson, incurs her father's wrath by falling in love with young Sam Hooper, a copper miner on Bodmin Moor. So when the moorland mines fail, Emily's father seizes the opportunity to ensure that Sam goes to seek a new life in the copper mines of South Australia's Yorke Peninsula.

Emily seems trapped into a lifetime of looking after her overbearing father, but when he dies suddenly, she finds herself free to follow the dictates of her heart. Her search for Sam takes her to South Australia, first to the Copper Triangle, then to the vast and sparsely populated outback of the magnificent Flinders Ranges and, finally, to the beautiful Adelaide Hills.

In the meantime, Sam has met an ageing prospector who is to change the course of the lives of the young couple from Cornwall . . .