Mary Cameron was self-confident, an aspirant writer, and feminist—but she also took with her white muslin for a wedding dress, and she married a near illiterate shearer William Gilmore. Their socialist dream foundered before very long and they had to earn their passage home with their baby son—through the impossibly remote country communities of Paraguay and the vast estancias of Argentina to Patagonia, the "end of the earth" made famous by Darwin and Bruce Chatwin. After 7 years in South America, the Gilmores finally sailed home. In this book, Anne Whitehead brilliantly counterpoints her own wanderings with Mary"s, the poet and national icon whose portrait now graces the Australian USD 10 note.