Nessie learns to fly a Cessna before she has her car licence. After studying aeronautical engineering at Sydney University, with her best friend, Corinne, Nessie joins the Air Force and meets her future husband Phillip, the son of an English duke, while she is doing her officer training at Point Cook, an outer suburb of Melbourne. Throughout her teens and early adult life, Nessie discovers that for her, love is not confined to one person, or one gender. Nessie achieves her goal of flying Caribou aircraft at Richmond Air Base, west of Sydney, but her pleasant life with Phillip which culminates with the birth of their son, Andy, is imperilled by the arrival from England of Henry Boyd, Phillip's childhood friend and Henry's stunning wife, Maggie.