[1] John Grant is a young, bonded schoolteacher who has been assigned to work a gruelling two-year post as the schoolmaster of Tiboonda, an isolated, three-building township in the outback of western New South Wales.

Upon finishing school in time for the six-week Christmas holiday season, Grant catches a train to the mining town of Bundanyabba – known by the locals as "The Yabba" – to await a flight home to Sydney, where he hopes to spend his vacation swimming at the nearby beach.

The next morning, Grant visits another pub, where he is befriended by mining director Tim Hynes, who invites him to have dinner with his wife and their adult daughter, Janette, and drink with two of his colleagues, boxers-turned-miners Dick and Joe.

Taking the rifle gifted to him by Dick and Joe and leaving Doc's cabin, he is encountered by Crawford in the street, who returns his belongings that were left behind during his rendezvous with the Hynes.

Realising that he has no further means of leaving The Yabba and that his own actions – beginning with his initial encounter with Crawford – have led to his continued suffering and demise, Grant descends into a stupor of self-loathing and collapses in a nearby park, where he discovers that he has one remaining bullet for his rifle.

Grant spends the remainder of his holiday recovering in hospital, where he signs a statement from Crawford explaining that his suicide attempt was an accident, and briefly encounters Janette working as a nurse.

After receiving a twenty pound loan from an almoner to pay for his hospital fee and promising to himself to "never get drunk again... except in good company", he returns to Tiboonda to begin the new school year.

The film was directed by Ted Kotcheff, from a script by Evan Jones, and featured Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence and Chips Rafferty in the lead roles.