Later we see the great empty plains of south west Queensland, and a few views of the beautiful Kimberlies can also be seen. From a rainy windy Galway, Western Eire, the film miraculously dumps us in the middle of the splendid scenery of the Blue Mountains, not far from Oberon I rather fancy, overlooking the majestic Kurragorang Valley. The best was a very loveable David Ngoombujarra as Burrakin, aborigine who became Patsy Durack's lifelong friend.

From extreme to extreme, the saga unrolls, beautifully filmed and sometimes really well acted, reaching its forseeable conclusion without too many problems.

However, they persevere and get their own spread `in the back of beyond' near Thargomindah (the name is changed in the film, can't think why) in the deep south west of Queensland. However, on arrival in the land of promise, they soon found that life there was also going to be rather hard. Based on a novel of the same name (Corgi Books, 1967) written by a grand-daughter of the main protagonist of this story Patsy Durack the film narrates the hard life of some Irish peasants who fled the potato famine in 1853 and emigrated to Australia. I myself emigrated to Australia near 40 years ago and have very fond memories of the country thus I do not pass up any opportunities of seeing Australian productions which come by here, usually on our regional Basque TV Channel.

Kings in grass castles book