Radio Times: Review by:; David Butcher

Here’s a good story for Australia Day. As vehicles cross the arid desert of the outback, their exhaust fumes have just enough moisture to help vegetation grow by the side of the highway. But when kangaroos are drawn to these green shoots, they often get hit by trucks, and a baby kangaroo sometimes survives inside the pouch of its dead mother. That’s where Chris “Brolga” Barns comes in. He rescues orphaned joeys from the pouches of their roadkill mums and raises them to be part of the mob at his sanctuary.

It’s a tender, touching story, beautifully filmed in the golden desert light. Brolga is a remarkable character – bottle-feeding his joeys in the night, bathing them and tending their wounds. The scene where resident alpha male Roger chases Brolga around the bush (male kangaroos love to box and brawl) is wonderful.

About this programme

Part one of two. Documentary about Brolga, a tough Australian who lives in the desert Outback with orphaned kangaroos he rescued from the roadside. As he nurses them back to health, he shares his one-room tin shack with three joeys he is hoping to return to the wild. But with desert fires and marauding wild dogs, will they make it?