On her rounds as district nurse, Matron Kertesz meets Lachie Hughes, a young man paralysed from the waist down as the result of a recent accident. Lachie's doting parents are a challenge for him but he makes friends with Molly and Brendan. Frank meets Jack Bates while fishing. Jack, a businessman who's returned to the valley after a forty year absence, talks Terence into performing a practical joke on Frank. Simon runs over a wombat and is forced to adopt it after Vicky finishes treating it. Marta pulls Lachie from a dam when he tries to go swimming by himself. Lachie takes a shine to Marta but she tells him she wants their relationship to remain strictly professional. Simon looks for the cause of a young girl's illness and weight loss.
Lachie rushes his mother to the hospital when she suffers a spontaneous pneumothorax. Sgt. Gilroy gives Simon a rough time over his keeping the wombat (given the name Fatso by Simon). Shirley Dean receives special treatment from a real man about town and the policeman about town has his nose put out of joint. Marta tells Lachie the story of how she escaped from Hungary. Marta sleeps with Lachie after first consulting Terence about the logistics. Simon and Vicky's date is sidetracked when Vicky spots a cow stuck in a mud hole and asks Simon to help her get it out. Jack Bates has a heart attack and dies. Lachie makes plans to return to Sydney after receiving a letter from his girlfriend who wants to give their relationship another go.
