This time, on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Lift! That's it. Lift!
..struggling to work alone...
This is very, very difficult without Russell.
..Shane Caligari is forced to call in heavy duty backup.
What have you done here?
..and his gold hunt...
I think you've been digging in the wrong area.
..ends up uncomfortably close to home.
Hey! He's making me nervous.
After torrential storms, Vince, Bibby and Murray clash over strategy...
Murray, this is disappointing.
We need to move on.
We cannot go down the bottom end.
It is to (BLEEP) wet.
We're just gonna dig here where there's no gold?
..causing tempers to flare.
I've got mortgages, I've got this lease to pay for.
I'm not making a fortune, am I?
I'm sick of working down here. There is no gold.
I'm over it.
The Gold Retriever's progress is stalled by a dried up wash plant.
Why isn't anything running?
The taps are dry.
If you've got no water, we can't put the product through.
But a gold rich quartz seam...
I reckon this is where the gold is.
..could rescue their season.
(LAUGHTER)
We've doubled our season total so far.
(WHOOPING)
I'm very worried about this weather. It's very overcast.
It's windy.
I got a bog back hoe in the dam.
This is one of my better efforts.
What happened is I parked it here, there's a dam underneath it.
We've had a lot of rain and it's sunk.
It's like being stuck in a bowl of ice cream.
I've got to get it out.
The last thing I need is this weather.
This is really putting a halt on what I want to be doing.
Veteran gold miner Shane Caligari is working alone
for the first time in four years
after ending his partnership with Russell Nash.
Well, Rusty, I've got to let you know
that I'm intending on going back to the Galah.
Somebody wants to buy my tenement.
Deals like this have to be done face-to-face.
So I must return there.
That's it?
I'm not going back to Galah, Shane. I can't.
I don't blame you, Russell.
I've just made great money. I can go home pretty happy now.
Thanks very much.
Great journey, Rusty.
It's been special.
Give us a big hug.
Shane returned to his Galah lease
to begin negotiations with the mining company.
We all know that money talks
so the story is it's a six-figure sum for the option,
seven figure sum to exercise it and a 1% royalty if we go ahead.
Yeah, it's one thing to want something
but unless it's justified, we're not going to be signing anything.
Before the sale can be finalised,
the company has demanded samples for analysis.
What I'm interested in is going
and looking at a shaft and looking at some in situ structures.
Hopefully some veining and seeing what's around.
Look at that, Ryan. That's a nice bit of material.
That's a good looking piece of quartz.
Good indication with the hematite staining.
It's very exciting and I can't wait till we get it back.
Now all Shane can do is wait for their report
and work the lease alone.
If the mining company happened
to buy my lease, I might not have much time.
I've got to find as much gold as I possibly can and my back hoe
is bogged to the hilt at the moment.
I got a bloke coming but he can't drag it out like it is now
because he'll rip it in half
so I've got to lift it up but it's really bogged.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to get some timber,
I'm going to lift it up as high as I can
and I'll just keep putting timber in there
until I get it up out of the ground.
I just hope it starts.
Nope, nothing's happening here.
Aah!
Oh, boy.
Oh, my God.
This is very, very difficult
without Russell and if Russell was here,
it probably wouldn't have happened.
But anyway, that's what happens when I'm left to my own resources.
Ready, let's go.
(ENGINE STARTS)
I've just got to give this a little bit of a tickle.
I'll let that sit now how that is.
No fun getting old.
I'll get this bucket flat.
Then I've got to push it up.
Lift.
Lift!
Lift! That's it. Lift.
I got to be careful it doesn't roll.
Lift.
Lift!
That's it.
I'll go and get my timber now.
One big log over here.
I've got my good mate Brucie coming here.
I'm paying him three grand to get the machine up.
I can't get this machine up, I can't do my prospecting.
That means I can't get the gold
before they exercise the rights to my tenement.
Ugh...
Oh...
This is hard yarn for a broken down old contractor, I can tell you.
Oh...
Right, I still can't get this high enough.
I'll be here all (BLEEP) night.
It's a lot harder than what I thought.
I'll just turn my lights on, headlamp on and I will make it work.
But I can do it.
Just see if I can get a little...
That's it. Bruce is going to be able to pull this now.
That's it.
Bruce has to pull it now. I just can't do any more.
I just hope everything is OK and we don't rip the machine in half.
Oh, my God, honey. Look at the bloody...
Look what it's done to the bridge.
We've had some water out here.
Never have any water flowing through here.
No. No, this is not good.
This is horrible.
Rookie gold miners Vince Malacria and Bibby Gerali
are hunting for gold in Victoria's legendary golden triangle.
Along with their mentor and long-time friend Murray Cox.
But it's halfway through the mining season
and record rainfall has kept them
to just a quarter of their 40oz season target.
Leaving them desperate to find a new lead.
Murray came up with a game plan last week.
We're going to go off the geomagnetic data report
and head down to the bottom where the old-timers' diggings are,
where we know there should be gold there.
They didn't dig there for no reason, darling so...
Absolutely.
What is he doing down there?
Oh, my goodness.
He is in the wrong spot.
I don't want him down there.
No.
That's not what we discussed the other week.
This is supposed to be a joint decision
that we are making to do this together.
Just tell them how it is really.
I will. Be honest.
What are you doing, mate?
We discussed we're not digging down here.
Yeah, but we've had a mountain of rain since then, Vince.
We came up with a plan. We are a team.
Let's get it together. Let's go find some gold, mate.
We cannot go down the bottom end.
It is too bloody wet.
So, what, we're just gonna dig here where there is no gold?
Well, we don't know that yet.
We just have to explore it anyway, mate.
I know we spoke about it and that's what we agreed.
It's that (BLEEP) wet,
you can't even walk through the (BLEEP) grass down there, mate.
Look, let's just stay here, finish this hole off.
If there's nothing in here, then we can't go down the bottom,
but I'll go anywhere else where it is dry enough to work for you.
Yeah, righto, I'll go get Bibby.
I know Vince and Bibby want to go down below
but there is absolutely no way we can dig down there.
It's just too (BLEEP) wet.
The geomagnetic data report Vince and Murray are following
showed large gold deposits in the lowest parts of the paddock.
The exact area is flooded by the recent rain storms.
This is the worst start to a season I've ever had in my life
and I'm just not prepared to go down there,
get machinery bogged,
spend half our day trying to get it back out of the ground.
We've only got 10oz and this whole setup
has cost us quarter of $1 million.
If we don't find gold soon,
Honestly we are done.
Give her a bash.
I'll just take a little bit more off here with the mud bucket, mate.
If there is no gold then it's no good to us.
Yeah, I know.
No matter how good it looks.
Yeah, but it's only one small patch you know...
..in this type of material.
Even right in the middle of gold patches,
occasionally you get a hole with no gold.
Bibby, this is what I'm saying.
We should be moving down to that other spot. There is no gold.
Yeah, I know.
What do you reckon? We get out of here? There's no gold here.
All we're doing is burning diesel.
Mate, I can go down there for the gold.
We can't go down there. It's too (BLEEP) wet.
I don't care. Come up with a way, mate. This is (BLEEP)
I'm telling you, you cannot put earthmoving gear on that ground.
I'm going broke here.
You've got money, I've got mortgages.
I've got this lease to pay for.
You know, diesel.
I got no money coming in.
I've got no job.
I'm not making a fortune, am I?
Machinery will not work on that sort of ground.
I'm sick of working down here.
There is no gold. I'm over it.
Hey, Brad. Got a copy?
How are you going, mate?
Yeah, mate.
I think this needs to work for us or else I think we are out, mate.
The season is not looking too good at the moment
so we have to give this our best crack.
I'm going to give it a last chance, mate.
Rip, shit or bust, man. Got to find gold.
In the Western Australian goldfields, the Gold Retrievers
Brad and Wendy McGhee and Chris Smith have had the season from hell.
Struggling to even cover costs.
We got a 50oz target to hit
and we're halfway through the season and we haven't even hit 10oz yet.
We've had to spend some of the profit on obviously on diesel
and time out here
so it eats it up pretty quick
and 10oz doesn't go far in the big picture.
Wendy's on the detector and I'm pushing the pad for her.
She seems to be a bit of a good luck charm for us.
If she can even just find enough to keep these machines running,
then it's going to be an absolutely huge help.
I might go grab my detector
and have a bit of a look where I've been digging.
I like what I'm seeing.
It looks like a quartz reef to me.
I think this is exactly what we're supposed to be looking for.
Last week...
Oh, my God. I hope this is gold.
Wendy found just enough gold...
2.14oz.
..for a last-ditch effort to narrow down the search area...
..paying drone mapper Mark Askham to conduct a survey of their lease.
Mate, please tell me you've found something.
I've actually come up with a different location
for you which I believe you should be digging.
It's formed a picture of what I believe is a reef structure
that's running through the bottom corner of your block.
Really strong chance of gold.
So your thoughts, you reckon we should stay or go?
Don't go home. No way. Don't go home.
You got the massive bulk of the quartz here
then you've got this other stone coming through.
You got all these quartz stringers coming straight through it so
it's a good sign but it's really no good to us unless it's holding gold.
I'm really hoping that they can uncover that reef.
I've got a good sound here.
Oh, hopefully...
..it's a bit of gold.
(MACHINE WAILS)
Oh, my goodness.
Wow.
It's got a bit of quartz in there.
Yeah, that's saying something.
That's really, really good. That's positive.
Quartz and gold share a complementary
molecular structure that binds them together.
During a volcanic or tectonic event,
gold rich quartz veins are formed
when hydrothermal fluids are pushed upwards through cracks
in the Earth's crust before cooling and hardening.
So I'm just running the detector over it.
Even though we think that there could be fine gold in this,
there could be detectable gold as well.
(MACHINE WAILS)
There's a signal there in all that quartz that's fallen down.
That might be a bit of gold.
Huh.
That's a bit of gold.
That is awesome.
Look, it's only small but it means so much you know.
We've been struggling.
We really have been struggling a lot
and it's been so stressful
but hopefully there's a heap more gold in here.
Hi, Chris, Wendy. Yo.
I found a nuggy.
Did you?
Yeah. Found it right near this reef so there could a load more in there.
That's a really good sign, mate.
I reckon we sampled this just to make sure
that these gold finds aren't just an anomaly.
I reckon we take a bucketload back to the crusher.
I could fit a ton in that bucket. Take it back down.
That's a bloody good sample size anyway.
It would give us a great indication, mate.
All this mapping and all these results
that we've got will hopefully put us back on.
Yeah, I reckon we are onto it. I reckon this is where the gold is.
(ENGINE STARTS)
That's a good ton sample.
Lots of quartz material.
The Gold Retrievers' lease is 200ha
so they'll have to truck dirt over a kilometre
from the dig to their wet plant.
This is exciting.
This is where we are going to see
if we're going to get some gold.
The wash plant uses water to extract the gold from the paydirt
but first, the material is passed
through a crusher which then
smashes the rocks into chunks
small enough for the ball mill
to pulverise into a fine sand
using heavy steel balls.
The material is then washed
into the concentrator
which traps any fine gold.
Finally we are getting some paydirt through.
It's taken us all season to get to this stage.
The dirt's got to start paying off.
That's our ton put through there now.
See what's in the concentrator.
There should be a plug down in here.
Then we should be able to see if there's anything in here.
I reckon this is going to save our season.
Oh, my God.
My good mate Bruce has come here.
I paid him $3,000 to come here to help me pull this machine out.
It's stuck in the mud and hopefully he can drag it out.
It's Bruce!
Keep it coming, Brucie
That'll do you there I think, Bruce.
What have you done here?
Righto.
We'll make a link with the chain
and put it through the shackle here and I'll hook on the ripper.
That's a good idea, Bruce.
Why didn't I think of that?
Don't answer that.
Why didn't you think about parking that somewhere else?
The only way to put the chain around,
Shane, because you got nothing to hook it to.
OK.
Put the chain around...
Yeah, yeah, OK.
Through the shackle I'll have you out in three grand flat.
(LAUGHS)
OK, Brucie. Let's make it happen.
Bruce, the chain came off!
(SIGHS)
It looks like the chain is caught under the wheel
and as we pull back, it opened the latch.
Have another go.
Are you right this time?
Hey...
Tell you what, I paid three grand for this and the chain comes off.
What happened there?
I don't know.
Try that bit again.
Yeah. OK.
We finally got it out.
I got a bit of damage here.
The steering wheel is not turning it.
Look.
Nothing.
I've wrecked the universal joint.
I've got nothing. Look.
Nothing.
The back hoe is out of action.
Without it, Shane can't push pads for gold detection.
But there could be a solution.
I've got another little bit of a project for you.
I hope it's not like that last project.
I just want a few scrapes up and down here for me, OK?
Just want to take the top off?
That's it, Brucie.
You don't get three grand for no reason at all OK?
You know, Bruce, there's no such thing as a free meal in this world.
Gee, that's hard, isn't it?
I'm just dragging over the top of a bit of rock there
now so I don't know how we'll go here.
We'll give it a go.
We'll just push a bit deeper.
If there is going to be gold here, it'll be here.
Do you want to wave your magic wand over that and see how we go?
(MACHINE WAILS)
I can hear a bit of noise going on.
I think it's just a lot of ironstone. Very ironstone-y.
I don't know.
I think I might abandon the spot.
Can you scrape down deeper?
Yeah, I can do that.
OK, I've got an ace up my sleeve and I'm going to investigate it.
Righto.
Oh, that's interesting.
Keep scraping, Bruce.
I'll stay down here. I'll see you in a little while.
The ace up Shane's sleeve is exploration geologist Kate Dundas.
Shane's a great prospector but he's no geologist.
So I've come up here to give him a hand
and my speciality is exploration geology
so I've worked on multi-million dollar projects.
I will be able to help him interpret the results
and the reports that he is getting from this mining company
and really get the best price that he can for his leases.
I've known Shane for most of my life.
He was a really good mate of my dad's.
They were both plumbers and they worked together for a long time.
Coming up here was something my dad always wanted to do
but he never made it.
He passed away before he got up here.
So I feel like I'm walking in my dad's footsteps a bit.
Squid ring.
How are you, Kate?
Good, how are you? Finally made it up here.
Dad couldn't make it but I'm here in his place.
Is that where I'm sleeping?
No way in the world.
Why?!
Anybody that comes to this tenement first up sleeps on the flat.
On the ground.
You promised me good food and a comfortable bed
and I'm not seeing any of that at the moment.
Too bad, get over it.
Using satellite imagery and historical findings from the area,
Kate has assessed the gold potential of Shane's Galah lease.
So these are your tenements in here.
These small ones on here
and the map shows us big structures on the ground essentially.
It shows you that you've got a structure running
through the middle of your tenure here which is a really good sign.
I actually think you could be sitting
on a really great gold deposit here.
Well, this will govern the offer that I'll be getting of course.
The financial offer for my payday on the way out.
So we need to sweeten this as much as possible basically.
We do and I need your jargon to make it happen.
So I've got to get the gold out now
not what's going on in the future so what do I do now?
There are two takeaways here.
You're going in the wrong direction and you're not going deep enough.
I can go down there for the gold. We can't go down there.
It's to (BLEEP) wet.
You really do have to understand.
Machinery will not work on that sort of ground.
I'm sick of working down here.
There is no gold. I'm over it.
At their Talbot lease, Vince, Bibby
and Murray have abandoned work on a gold rich area hit by heavy flooding.
Now they are on the hunt for new ground.
Murray, this is disappointing.
We need to move on. Honestly.
It's just a waste of time at the moment.
We are stuck though.
The best thing I can suggest is to go back up the top end
and give it a crack up there.
OK. Fair enough.
Let's do that then.
We'll try probably the one
that's closest to my old leases across the road first.
We'll give that one a bash.
I know I like the area
because all the good crystal gold I got with the detector
in the paddock just above it.
When gold forms in rock where there is a void, gold crystals can grow.
Crystalline gold is incredibly rare
and can be worth over 500 times its weight in gold.
You should see the water running through the grass here.
It is so wet.
God, it's making a mess going through the paddock.
God...
Making such a mess getting this machine from one spot to another.
So, Murray, why are we digging here?
What did you choose here for?
That's the driest lot of topsoil we've dug up this year.
I thought it would be on this edge. Yeah.
Another good thing to is a couple of new spots
are totally virgin ground.
So if we do happen to discover
something in there, it could be very good.
It's always exciting when you're exploring virgin ground.
There's nothing like it.
Oh, he's got a plan. He knows his stuff.
He's got the experience.
I have to roll with him on this one
and it is just too wet down there so...
Grey is coming up.
Here we go.
Bottom now.
Pipecleaner now.
Right, Vinnie.
Get in there and make a name for yourself, son.
Yeah, mate. All right, I'll get down there.
There's got to be a bit in here somewhere, mate.
Hopefully, mate.
There's got to be.
(MACHINE WAILS)
I'll have a look.
I might have broken a bit off one of the teeth.
All right, hopefully it's not a chip.
(MACHINE WAILS)
Whoa. Wow.
That sounds wonderful.
First grab. Oh.
It's an actual specimen.
You got gold there? That's gold, mate.
When it's coming out of virgin ground like that,
that's a good sign, mate.
Yeah, mate. We might have a place to mine, you reckon?
How much do you reckon's in it?
7g. Maybe.
That's going to put the season back on track.
You reckon?
So Murray was right.
His experience is definitely paying off.
Crystalline gold in virgin ground.
That's what we are here to find.
Oh, my God.
It is beautiful.
You're right. It is crystal.
It is stunning.
When there's one, there's usually more.
Yes.
Yes, we are finally seeing some gold and this is paying off.
This is awesome.
This is what we want.
See what's in the concentrator.
Oh, my God.
Hey, guys.
Come and check this out.
Stick your heads in here and have a look.
Right there. (LAUGHS)
That is visible. I thought we were only going to get fine gold.
Can you imagine how much fine gold is in there too?
There is a picker there.
You are kidding. Another one there.
Oh, wow.
That is unbelievable.
Awesome.
Eh, darl? We're on the gold.
What we're going to do now is
going to try and get as many tons through as we can
so Wendy will drive the car, I'll jump on the digger
and keep loading up the trailer and she can bring it back
and Chris will keep feeding the wet plant.
I'm just gonna keep digging this reef out
and it feels like our season may be turning around
so this is exactly what we've been trying to hit
and it's absolutely fantastic.
This could be a turning point in our season for sure.
Hey, Wendy, the trailer's full.
If you can run that back to run it through the wash plant.
That should keep Chris busy.
So this reef that they're on is looking really good.
I hope it's good for them
because it's really important for me that Brad succeeds in this.
This is his dream and I really want it to come true for him.
I'm just going to do whatever
they need me to do to help them get back on track.
So we're going to empty the trailer off
and then Chris can go feed the plant with the dirt and I'll go back
and get another trailer load.
Each trailer load weighs two tons
but Chris has a method for unloading it in seconds.
Wow.
She's all yours, mate.
All right. You're good to go.
No worries.
I'll go to Brad fill it up and bring back another trailer load
There we go.
Feed that beast.
So it looks like I've tapped it dry.
If you've got no water, you can't put the product through.
That shuts the plant down as well.
OK, Kate.
We've been digging in the wrong spot.
We know where we've got to go.
Yup. The pressure is on.
Hey, I know that guy.
Hello, how are you? Good. How are you?
I haven't seen you for a long time.
I know, how's it going?
Real good, yeah.
He's been on at me for years to get up here and I finally made it.
What do you reckon?
I think you've been digging in the wrong area
so my new plan, we're going to hit the caravan.
Not the bloody caravan!
I'll miss it by this much.
Not even that.
1m. I'm going to be sitting on the hump and I'll be watching.
What am I thinking? He's getting too close to my caravan already.
It's all right.
Just let him go.
Let him do it.
He's here to do a job.
You're paying him three grand to do a job.
I think he's too close to my caravan. That's what I think.
He can cut in nice and close to these pink flowers, Bruce.
Oh, mate!
Here we go.
Keep it coming.
Settle down. He is loving this.
Yes.
I tell you what, Kate, there'd better be some gold here.
That machine's got three times more traction than any other machine.
It hasn't got rubber wheels.
If it had rubber wheels, it wouldn't be doing what this did.
This is the most unique machine in the world.
No doubt about it.
Just wish you wouldn't get so close to my caravan.
It's making me nervous.
Keep pushing.
Oh, now he's struggling.
Now we are getting down.
Now he is struggling. I like that, that he is struggling.
Shane.
Maybe it's time to go for a detect.
What do you think?
Yeah, OK.
We've never dug down this deep before.
I reckon there is some gold to find.
(MACHINE WAILS)
That's a different sound.
Yeah.
(MACHINE WAILS)
This is virgin ground. Never been here before.
Let's see if I'm right.
Have a look at that, Kate.
It's got to be in there somewhere.
(GASPS) Look at that, Kate.
We found one.
Near the caravan.
This plenty more where that's come from.
Look, Shane.
There's a target here.
It looks like it's in hard rock.
Like usual, I'm doing the heavy work.
Why am I doing the heavy work at 66?
I can do it for you.
No. Keep your perfect record intact. Don't do anything.
I reckon it looks like a bit of leverite.
Leave it right there, it's (BLEEP) useless.
Come on. We can't leave it now.
(MACHINE WAILS)
Give me a hand.
No, not in there.
Come on, Kate.
Whoa.
Shane!
Do you believe me now?
Yes!
That is brilliant.
This was looking really promising.
We've put down a few holes since then.
Not one piece of gold.
Hey, babe we've got to keep an eye on that weather.
It looks like it's coming in
so we might have to move a little bit quicker to get this pad done.
Record rainfall
in the state of Victoria has flooded Vince, Bibby and Murray's lease.
Now they are hoping a new lead will pay off.
We haven't had a lot of luck this week
and we are way away from our target
so we really need to find something half decent to put us back on track.
Sounds all right.
(MACHINE WAILS)
That's more like it.
Oh, it's out.
Run over it again.
(MACHINE WAILS)
Steel from the bucket.
Damn.
Not happy.
When the excavator strikes hard rock,
small steel shards can shear off the bucket
creating false targets for the metal detector.
Things have really gone sour again.
I can't see us getting our 40oz target the way we are going.
This is just not good enough.
It's not good enough.
None of the gravel coming out at the moment is heavy enough.
Get this one done as soon as you can,
do this end down here first as soon as I level it out.
Hopefully something comes out of this.
Yeah.
We've got to get something on the board before this weather comes in.
Come on, lady luck.
Need to find something...
(MACHINE WAILS)
Hey... That sounds all right.
(MACHINE WAILS)
Whoo. That sounds good.
Get this out of the way.
Let's have a little look.
Good luck, babe.
Come on.
That's a big bit of steel or a big bit of gold, darling.
Yeah.
Whoo.
Wow.
One of those rocks.
Oh, it's a big rock. Peel it open, honey.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, you're kidding me.
Oh, wow.
It's gold.
It's gold, you're right.
It's a nice piece of gold.
Oh, my God.
This is what we need.
We need more of that.
Murray!
Look what I found.
Unreal.
What a buzz.
How good is that?
Hey, unreal.
Good on you Bibby.
Go get another one.
Put her in your jar.
Go and get another one.
Thank you.
Whoo.
We need water to run that plant.
In the arid Western Australian goldfields,
the Gold Retrievers are facing a water shortage
on their Devils Cut lease.
We are going to have to sort something ASAP.
Why isn't anything running?
The taps are dry.
Really?
What about I go put the two pods on the trailer
and go into Coolgardie and fill them up?
Yeah, that sounds like a plan.
Right, you're good to go.
No worries. I'll be as quick as I can.
(SIGHS)
Hi, Chris how's it going, mate?
Oh, mate. Come and check this out.
What's going on?
Mate, she's not looking good.
Check that out.
I've sent Wendy in to get water.
All right, well, we just need...
I will keep an eye on it. We'll run it as much as we can.
We're going to have to shut it down before we run out
because it will absolutely destroy the gears.
All right, let's get back into it and use what we can.
If that hammer mill gets dry,
everything will bind up and it could potentially snap shafts
so we need to keep an eye on the water and keep an eye that
we are getting water to everything that needs to get water to.
Hey, mate, how's that water level looking now?
It's getting dangerously low.
We're almost sucking mud, mate.
I'm going to have to shut it down, mate.
Hey, you guys got copy?
Are you back?
I'm back with the water.
Whoo. Yes.
All right, well done, darl.
I tell you what, you've saved us.
You couldn't have timed it any better.
I was just about to shut it down.
Oh, great. Well, I filled up two pods.
Perfect.
Mate, I reckon we can get another 20 tons through with that.
Yeah. That's awesome, man.
Get that water fed back into the beast and I'll keep working.
I'm just gonna take the picker that we had in the water down here
that we are running out.
It was starting to suck some mud up
and I'll put it in to the new pods that Wendy brought back.
We'll be back up and running.
With the plant now running flat out, the team have a chance of hitting
their target and processing 20 tons of paydirt from the quartz seam.
Gold everywhere, darl.
I hope so.
Whoo-hoo.
I like it. I like it a lot.
This is cool, man.
I'm really excited actually.
I'm excited to see how much gold we've actually got.
It's not every day you get to pour a gold bar, is it?
Mate, wait till you see this one.
(LAUGHTER)
I reckon that's over 3oz.
That is awesome.
Mate, let's do this last pour.
I reckon there may be a little bit left in that from the drink.
Mate, there's nothing guaranteed but let's have a look.
All right, I'll turn that off.
Now or never, mate.
We good? Yup.
(LAUGHTER)
Are we good? Yeah.
All right so...
Gold in them there hills.
Put it on there and I'll smash it.
Bloody good that we got another little bit out of it.
Hey.
That's wicked.
That's not bad for dregs, is it?
I'll tell you what, I didn't think there was anything left.
So to chuck this in and get...
It's pretty awesome, isn't it?
That's crazy.
That looks like another ounce or so.
Holy crap, man. What a bonus.
Let's go weigh it up.
Let's get it all on there and have a look.
We need to know the final weight, don't we?
That one on, darl.
Oh, just shy of 7oz.
Don't forget these.
Oh, yeah.
Put these on. Forgot about that.
Nailed 7oz.
(LAUGHS)
7.29.
That is awesome.
So how much is that in dollars?
18 grand?
Just over.
We've doubled our season target so far.
In one week.
If this continues, we'll hit target.
Hit target. Yeah.
We were ready to give up. I think we've made the right decision.
It was tough.
We sort of had to come up with money
to get the drone survey but look at the result.
Whoo-hoo.
(LAUGHTER)
Right, guys. Let's weigh in the gold.
Let's chuck it on the scales.
Surely the scales don't lie, do they?
Well, there is gold here but probably not enough.
We're at 10oz, we are halfway through the season.
About halfway, yeah.
It's not looking too good and the weather's been against us.
We'll weigh it up and see what we've got.
Yup.
Throw her on.
Ready?
OK, that's 2.48 and we'll put the specimen on.
That comes up to 3.4 and we'll round that down to 3oz I guess.
It is what it is for that week I guess.
It's not great but...
It's OK but it's not what we expected.
It's not what we're here for. Exactly.
We are here to make money and not just cover costs.
That's right.
Well, guys, you never know.
All it takes is one hole, one big piece of gold
and you can then run off and retire.
No, you're right, Vinnie.
There could be a big one in the next hole.
You just don't know, mate.
We've just got to give it a go.
The sun is gonna be out tomorrow so I reckon we get back into it.
Definitely.
Go for it. Alright.
All right, Shane. We got the scales.
Put the scales in position.
0.856oz.
2,100 bucks.
That's all I want to hear.
It's not a bad output.
Shane is hoping that, with some help from Kate,
he can reach his 40oz season target.
This is great, Kate.
We've only been on this patch a little while
and we are already finding gold.
Told you, Shane.
Got to listen to your geologist.
I got a surprise for you.
All right, Shane.
OK, Kate.
It's better than sleeping on the flat. What do you reckon?
It's hardly palatial, Shane,
but I guess it's better than sleeping on the flat.
Well, it keeps the flies out and it will also keep the mosquitoes out.
I'll take it.
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv