Walkabout

A teenage girl and her little brother live with their parents in a modest high-rise apartment in Sydney. One day, their father drives them into the Outback, still in their school uniforms, ostensibly for a picnic. As they prepare to eat, the father draws a gun and fires at the children. The boy believes it to be a game, but the daughter realises her father is attempting to murder them, and flees with her brother, seeking shelter behind rocks. She watches as her father sets their car on fire and shoots himself in the head. The girl conceals the suicide from her brother, retrieves some of the picnic food, and leads him away from the scene, attempting to walk home through the desert. By the middle of the next day, they are weak and the boy can barely walk. Discovering an oasis with a small water hole and a quandong tree, they spend the day playing, bathing, and resting. By the next morning, the water has dried up. They are then discovered by an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to draw water from the drying bed of the oasis. The three travel together, sharing kangaroo meat and learning to communicate using gestures and words from each other's languages. As they journey on, the children stumble upon a weather balloon and eventually lead the Aboriginal boy to an abandoned farm. They witness the brutal slaughter of buffalo by white hunters, who nearly run over the Aboriginal boy in a truck. The boy then lies in a trance among buffalo bones, having painted himself in ceremonial markings, before initiating a courtship ritual with the girl. Years later, the girl prepares dinner for her now adult brother, seemingly unaware of their past adventure. In this poignant moment, she recalls playing and swimming naked in a billabong with her brother and the Aboriginal boy.