The Diary of Ben Cross, Northern NSW, 1865. When Ben Cross runs away from his brutal uncle, he is looking for adventure. But he finds much more than that when he joins the bushranger Thunderbolt and becomes 'cockatoo' - or lookout - for the bushranger's gang. In between raiding cattle stations, inns, stores and mail coaches, Ben befriends Thunderbolt's wife, Mary Ann, helping her in her endless hunt for food and hiding places in the wilderness. But at the end of a year of running from the law, of dramatic rescue and desperate shootouts, both Ben and Thunderbolt know they must give up the bushranging life. If they can ...