This is the story of a young couple who emigrated from Ireland to East Africa in the mid 1950s. Their adventures, both in work and in explorations in remote regions, are told against a background of day to- day living as privileged Europeans in a deeply colour graded society.

The tales of the late Victorian explorers of the 'Dark Continent', Stanley, Speke, Burton, Baker and the Irishman, Surgeon Major T.H. Parke, are interwoven in the narrative: the paths of these intrepid adventurers are crisscrossed from Lake Victoria to the fabled 'Mountains of the Moon', named by Ptolemy and now known as the Ruwenzori.