Sailing north along the Australian East Coast in 1770, Captain James Cook spied eleven mysterious peaks that he named the Glasshouse Mountains after the glass furnaces of his native Yorkshire. Unknown to Cook, the mysterious landforms were culturally significant to the traditional owners of the land, the Gubbi Gubbi people, who have long regarded them as deeply spiritual places. Celebrated writer Clayton Steele returns from America after cancer treatment to rehabilitate in the beautiful hinterland of Queensland's Sunshine Coast. There, Clayton discovers an old, abandoned cottage set in a gloriously wild and beautiful garden beside Jerogeree Creek. But when Clayton encounters one-hundred-year-old Gubbi Gubbi man, Marjaru, and Gubbi Gubbi descendant, Billy, Clayton's life becomes entwined in the passing of a deeply spiritual man and its impact on the young boy.