For those who live on their wits, like the crust old miner Ebenezer Barrett and his nine-year-old companion Sing Lee, life on the goldfields in the 1860s can be downright dangerous. But when they find themselves freakishly blasted into the Sydney of 1992, the terrors of their own world seem mild by comparison. Here they are confronted by huge silver birds and giant insects that eat people! Coaches that move around without horses! Whole buildings made of mirrors, and worst of all, women who walk about quite openly in their underwear!
 
Who on earth would believe Ebenezer and Sing Lee's story? Luckily, the Piper children, Jody and Martin, do - and then the fun really starts! But how ill Ebenezer and Sing Lee return to their own time again? And do they really want to?