On Saturday January 3rd 1970, a tall, dignified Southerner, dressed in a white linen suit and black string tie and with a trimmed goatee stepped off a trans-Pacific flight that arrived in Sydney from Hawaii. Blinking in the early morning sunlight, and supported by his silvertipped walking cane, 79-year-old Colonel Harland Sanders was like nobody Australia had ever met before.

Colonel Sanders’ arrival in Australia was the culmination of a curious adventure for a group of young Canadians who had relocated from their home town of Windsor, Ontario, to launch an entirely new dining idea on the Australian public – the first ever fast food franchise.

This is their story.