Bill Peach follows the trails of the men who opened up the great unknown areas of Australia in the 19th century, from the Blue Mountains to the great rivers and deserts. Explorers, including Burke and Wills, Hume and Hovell, Sir Thomas Mitchell and Ludwig Leichhardt are portrayed by well-known Australian actors in dramatised reconstructions of the journeys, with on-camera comments by Bill Peach as he retraces the steps of the explorers. Actors include John Gregg (ABC-TV's CaptainJames Cook, The Oracle); Grigor Taylor (The Last Resort, DearestEnemy); Paul Mason (Rush); John Bell; Chris Haywood; British actor Martin Shaw (Cassidy, The Professionals); and Phillip Hinton, narrator of The Burma Railway and The Fall of Singapore.