McLeod's Daughters

This is where I try to get more of you to watch it, because well, because I like talking about something and knowing that my readers actually KNOW what I'm talking about, without going "huh? what?".

While searching through Netflix about a month ago, trying to add more movies to my Queue, I stumbled across McLeod's Daughters and my first thought was "well I don't know, it's set in Australia and I'm in the States, I'll probably be confused half the time with what they're saying or going on about."

But something caught my attention, I think the fact that it's a story about women for a change, I mean yes there's men in there too but it's focused on these 5 extraordinary women running Drover's Run, a farm.

So come with me and I'll tell you a bit about the story, if by the end of this post you're not running out to get the series, then I don't know what to tell you LOL

The show is filmed on location on what had been a working farm (until it was purchased in 1999 by the show's production company) in South Australia near Adelaide. The interior scenes at Drovers Run are filmed inside the farm's 150-year-old house....and what a gorgeous house it is, every time I watch the show I find something else about it that I absolutely love.

Drover’s Run is a large cattle property 180km from the nearest town and 400km from the nearest city. The property has been in the McLeod family for generations.

Jack McLeod became the owner of Drover’s Run after inheriting it from his father. Jack, his wife and their young daughter, Claire, ran the property together until Jack’s wife died while giving birth to Claire’s baby brother Adam, who also died during the birth.

After the death of his wife, needing a helpmate for Drover's Run and a mother for young Claire, Jack hastily remarried the beautiful Ruth, a city girl, and they had a second daughter, Tess.

Tess and Claire were devoted sisters, and even as Ruth struggled with the loneliness of living in the country and the harshness of life in the Australian bush, the hasty marriage began to show cracks. Eventually, unable to take the strain, the fragile Ruth abandoned Drover’s Run, and took 5 year old Tess back to the city, leaving behind Jack and Claire.


The show starts with the arrival of Tess (on the left), she receives a letter stating that she's inherited half of Drover's Run, but being a city girl and not really wanting anything to do with the cattle, she plans to sell her half.

Claire (on the right) has been running Drover's Run on her own since their father's death and it's all she has, but the property has a lot of debt so she can't buy out Tess's half. They go back and forth a bit, obviously Claire is upset that she hasn't seen Tess for 20 years and now she returns only to try and get rid of everything that Claire has worked for.


It's so amazing watching these two sisters reconnect and Tess decides to stay on and help Claire with the debt, but it soon becomes her home too and one she can't walk away from.


Now apart from Tess and Claire, there's another 3 women in the farm. Meg Fountain, the housekeeper and 'mother figure' in the show, is a warm- hearted woman, who embraces life no matter which way it turns. Like Claire, Meg has invested her life at Drover’s Run. She has a daughter Jodi, who absolutely hates living in the farm, she wants to travel the world and be a city girl, but when she does horribly in her exams at school, Meg forces her to stay at Drover's. Jodi isn't too thrilled at first but she does learn to accept the farm life.


One of my favorite characters is Becky. She's got a bad reputation in town but she's just a sweet girl dealing with a lot of baggage. She gets into some trouble when her boss does something unforgivable, Tess and Claire step in and she moves into Drover's Run.....of course Becky says she'll only stay if she can work for her board, so she does and becomes one of the most important women on the farm. She also becomes Jodi's best friend and though Meg doesn't really approve at first, she finally caves in.

But of course you can't have all these women without some handsome men around, and that is where the Ryan brothers come in. They live on the neighboring farm, Killarney with their father Harry and mother Liz. I truly enjoy watching the boys working for their own farm but also ready to lend a hand to the ladies at Drover's.

Right now we're watching the story of Tess and Nick develop and I'm loving every single second of it, I can NOT wait to see where it goes.

There are just so many emotions going on in the series, it's a rollercoaster of happy times and sad times and you laugh and you cry and you cheer them on and you want to see where these women will go. It really is a feel good show for me.

Here's some more pictures of the show:


Here's some of the music from the show, the artist is Rebecca Lavelle.