It's the middle of the night in the Namibian desert. When zoologist Tammie Matson wakes with a start to find two elephants standing right beside her tiny one-man tent, she makes a promise.

"If you just let me survive tonight I will give up Africa. I'll give it all up. Just don't let them stand on me."

It's not a promise she will easily keep. At 29, Tammie has spent nearly half her life in Africa working as a conservationist. Africa is her first love, and Tammie has just landed her dream gig researching ways to resolve conflict between the exploding population of elephants stampeding through villages and terrorising the locals.

But as her thirties approach, Tammie is ever conscious of not having ticked those boxes: no house, no job, no kids and no husband. Broke and with her visa running out, it seems like Africa may just force her to give it up after all. On returning to Australia, feeling like a foreigner in her homeland, Tammie unexpectedly lands a job at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Sydney. There she meets Andy, a charismatic Brit, and Africa suddenly has a rival. But she's not ready to give up on the elephants yet...

So begins an amazing journey across continents, to the places where elephants thrive and those where they're on the verge of extinction.