Book excerpt: This is a collection of eye-opening stories about fourteen governesses who drop in, Mary Poppins-like, to educate children in Australia's remotest rural areas and in return receive a bush education of their own... From the School of the Air to vast outback stations, small rural schools to remote Indigenous communities around Australia -- all across this wide brown land, governesses and teachers drop in, Mary Poppins-like, to take over homestead schoolrooms and the responsibility of educating children. The governesses are often young women from urban backgrounds, and they become part of the family they work for as well as the local community, and share the trials and tribulations of station life. They fall in and out of love, learn to ride horses and motorbikes, explore spectacular parts of Australia, help with station work, cook and eat with the family, attend rodeos, campdrafts, country races, and the local shows, and other bush events.