Marshall and his wife met these people - country folk from central Victoria, the Mallee and the Wimmera - real Australians. They ate with them, shared the makings with them, helped them and were helped by them, drank with them and talked with them over a nice cuppa. This is no fly-by-night collection of brief impressions - they travelled in a caravan drawn by two elderly yet stalwart horses, savouring scenes and the friendships of the road, until he had accident to his crook leg. And even in hospital he found plenty to write about - and everyone he wrote about had a story to tell him - sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes rich in courage. It's the battlers he loves - the farmer hit by drought, the woman whose husband is on the grog, the kid who never had much education, the bushman living content with only his dog for company. These are Marshall's people.