This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Jacqui! ..in their final week,
a freak accident leaves Jacqui and Andrew a man down...
Me hand won't even work properly.
..but a young station hand steps in...
Look at that!
..as they fight to reach their target
before the heat puts an end their season.
We're not quitting until we are literally forced out of here.
A lot of hard work went into it.
The ocean was a nice change but so good to be back.
Out of time and options,
Salty and Alan turn to mentor and mining legend Vern Strange
for new ground.
Got to find a lot of gold in a short amount of time.
But after spending thousands hiring a loader...
Mate, what are we doing?
I thought we were just doing one cut.
..they hit a roadblock...
This is hard. Too hard on the loader.
Just don't do anymore, mate. I've had enough of this.
..that threatens to send them home empty handed.
And in their final week...
Shane, why are you going down the hole?
..Shane and Kate's search for gold sends them down
a century old mine shaft...
Geez, there's nice quartz here, Kate.
..but a relic from the past puts their lives at risk.
Out! Out! There's a bit of old explosives here.
Get out of the hole!
We've found this burnt ground
so we thought we'd come and have a swing here.
You haven't got all of the grass in your way.
You can see all the rocks and the ground so clearly and easily.
It's so hot working out here in this.
Most prospectors are pretty much done for the season.
This time of year in north Queensland
is absolutely brutal.
Every day it's just getting hotter and hotter.
Wow, that's a huge termite mound.
You see a lot of them around this part of the world
but you don't see many as big as that one.
Shame there's no gold around it.
Far north Queensland,
in the remote Palmer River Goldfields,
Jacqui Buzetti and Andrew Leahy
are battling the intense tropical heat
in their hunt for life changing gold.
The wet season's approaching,
there's afternoon storms kicking in.
So, really, we know that our time's running out.
Soon, scorching temperatures will rise above 45 degrees Celsius,
followed by tropical storms
that can unleash 250 millimetres of rainfall in a day -
making gold detecting impossible.
The only reason we're still here
is because we haven't hit 50 ounces yet.
But we're running out of places to find it.
I don't really know if we're actually going to make it
by the time the rains kick us out of here.
Well, let's go and find another spot.
This one's done.
Let's go and make a new plan. It's a big property.
There'll be somewhere else we can go.
The end of the season is just around the corner, mate.
Yeah, I know. Have you seen my radio?
I took it off down here
when I sat down for a drink on that log.
I'll just go grab it, hey? Yeah, yeah.
Jacqui!
Andy!
You alright?
Oh!
Are you OK?
What happened, man?
Just tripped over coming back with me radio,
smashed me elbow, mate. Whoa!
Man, you wanna take that for us?
That is so sore.
I landed straight on it.
Ah, gee, me hand won't even work properly.
Are you serious? Yeah.
Um, alright. Come on, let's go.
I know it's ages away
but I think you need a doctor to look at that, hey?
Four hour drive.
Yeah, well, that could be really bad.
What if you've broken it? (SIGHS)
This is the last thing we needed, mate.
It's already starting to swell up, hey?
Seriously? Yeah.
We were going to struggle to make our target anyway
and now I've pretty much thrown in the towel for us.
Like, we're not going to get there now.
No, we still can.
This season, Jacqui and Andrew
pushed further than ever
into the depths of the Palmer River rainforest...
We're not getting through that, mate.
..to search for big gold on the infamous Cannibal Creek...
No way, mate. That is epic.
Yes! ..finding success early on...
Over a thousand ounces worth of gold.
Whew! That's what the Palmer's all about.
..but their luck was short lived...
Piece of junk.
Not what I came here for.
Ouch!
..coming face to face with the wildlife...
Green ants.
What's that? That's a feral pig.
No food left at all.
..and extreme heat of Far North Queensland.
Oh, you're cooked, mate.
Now with the season rapidly coming to a close,
they still need over 40,000 dollars worth of gold
to hit their ambitious 50 ounce target.
We've still got 17 ounces to go, mate.
I reckon the season's done. I reckon we're cooked.
We're nearly at the end now.
Don't fall down before the finish line, mate.
Oh, so they've just taken him in.
They said they're going to triage him soon.
Hopefully we're not stuck here too long
but it's just one of those things -
you've got to do something about it.
We're not going to be any good to find gold
if he's broken and busted like that.
So...now we wait.
Right, what have we got here, Shane?
Well, this is the heap of dirt that come from the old mine
that the old prospectors left behind.
How long has this stuff been here, do you know?
Well, this lot probably came out in about the early '70s,
so it's probably been here 50 years.
They would have dug this out here looking for really rich gold,
'cause the price wasn't quite good enough to process it
so they stock piled it here.
But for today's prices
it's worth...absolutely worth treating.
Well, why don't we grab a small sample of this
and we can sieve it and pan it off and see what we've got.
Exactly. That's what we'll do. Let's get on with it.
Alright. Come on.
In Western Australia's remote Yalgoo Goldfields,
Shane Calegari and Kate Dundas are up against the clock
as soaring temperatures threaten to bring their season to a close.
Targeting the piles of dirt -
left by old timer miners decades ago -
could be their last hope of hitting a 30 ounce target.
We're trying to take samples
from a few different places across the pile
so we can get a good representative sample.
Right.
Time's running out.
It's really our last option
so we've got to get gold out of this.Yeah.
This is really our last chance to get something.
With this little bit of dirt,
if we got three to four specs or five specs...Yeah, OK.
..it'd be very good.
OK, Kate, here's the big swirl.
I can see it from here, Shane.
That is absolutely fantastic. That's brilliant!
Yeah.
Without modern wash plants
capable of processing high volumes of pay dirt,
the old timers focused on hard rock mining,
chasing gold suspended in quartz veins.
Let's fire it up.
Shane and Kate believe the workings
left behind by the old timers are rich with fine gold -
perfect for their wash plant, Mr Fragile.
Alright, let's get on the gold.
This season...
I've just made great money, I can go home pretty happy now.
Thanks very much. Great journey, Rusty.
Shane's partnership
with long-standing teammate Russell Nash
came to an end...
Whoa!
..but geologist and family friend Kate Dundas
stepped in to keep the operation running...
I've known Shane for most of my life.
He was a really good mate of my Dad's
and coming up here was something my Dad always wanted to do
but he never made it.
He passed away before he got up here.
..and help negotiate the potential purchase of his Galah lease
by a local mining company...
It's a six-figure sum for the option,
seven-figure sum to exercise it
and a one percent weldy if we go ahead.
But with just one week left
and the sale of the lease still not guaranteed...
That's perfect.
..Shane and Kate are doing whatever it takes
to reach their 30 ounce target.
Because the dirt's so good here
I'm starting to think what's left down there,
there might be a couple of tonne of really good dirt
that hasn't been taken out of there.
Shane, what are you doing?
Why are you going down the hole?
Kate, there's good dirt left behind.
It'll probably be three times richer.
I'll stockpile it here then I can sieve the whole lot.
Alright. I like your thinking. Get on with it.OK. Let's go.
Whoa!
I don't know why this ground is so soft for, I don't know why.
Look at this.
Yeah, it's already super fine.
Kate, this ground shouldn't be so soft.
No, I'm not expecting it to be that soft.
I don't know why it is.
I've got a gut feeling it might have been blasted
and they never picked it out.
I might go down and have a look. You want to go down the hole?
I better go down and have a look. Alright.
This ground shouldn't be so soft
so I don't know what's going on down there.
So I'm going to go down and just have a little look
and if I don't like it I'll abandon it.
Well, this is like the old days.
50-years-ago I used to go down these holes.
Look at this.
This has been blasted and never dug out
but I can't get in here with my back hoe bucket.
So I'm going to fill this bucket up like this
until I clean this shaft out.
Geez, some nice quartz here, Kate.
Well, make sure you bring some up with you, Shane.
What the (BLEEP) hell's that?
What is it, Shane? Out of here.
Let's go. What is it?
There's a bit of old explosives here.
Out of here! Out, out!
Come on, move, move, move.
Get out of the hole! Get out of the hole!
Finally back in the desert, mate.
Oh, so good to be back.
The ocean was a nice change
but, oh, we got to come back here to finish this season.
Three ounces to go, mate.
Thankfully Vern's let us, uh, jump on his lease.
There's a lot of history out here.
Lots of gold has been found.
This has got good promise, this area.
I guess the next challenge is seeing (BLEEP)
cut a deal, hey?
Yeah, he likes his pound of flesh.
In the final week of their season,
Alan and Salty have travelled 500 kilometres inland
from the lush coast of Western Australia
to the Southern Cross goldfields.
Just three ounces shy of their 15 ounce season target,
they're hoping mining mogul Vern Strange,
will grant them access to his Mount Jackson lease.
G'day, lads. Hey, Vern.
Good to see you again.
It's good to be back. Yeah.
Mate, we're out here for one reason.
You need some cash. Yeah, man, we do.
We need some cash. Fair enough.
I got a site only about a kilometre east of here.
Uh, a bloke found a three ounce nugget there detecting
and he got about another six ounces just virgin ground.
I reckon you take a bit of dirt off it,
it should produce a few goodies.
What are you thinking for the, uh, for a deal?
Well, I'll give you a nice brand new loader
for 150 an hour.
How about first ounce you keep
and then 50-50 straight down the line.
Happy with that?
Sounds good, mate. You got yourself a deal.
You wait until you see this landscape.Yeah?
It'll blow your mind.
This season,
rookie team Alan and Salty took their hunt for gold
to some of Western Australia's most remote locations...
I can almost guarantee
there's never been a coil out here before.
..in the hope of finding untouched gold deposits
using outback knowledge
and underwater gold hunting equipment.
Oh, I got it!
Last week they took a gamble,
diving a shipwreck in search of treasure.
We've got to be onto a trail here of a...of some sort of shipwreck.
They turned up clues that could lead to a massive find...
I found the anchor!
..but no gold.
Maybe this shipwreck thing is a bit of a bust.
Now they've returned to the desert to face the heat
in the hope of hitting their 15 ounce target.
Well, we got three ounces left of the, ah,
season target, Salty.
We've got to include Vern's cut
and the fuel and the rental of this loader.
So, yeah, I reckon we're looking at more like five or six, eh?
Yeah, it's a...it's a safe guess, I reckon.
We are here.
Got the co-ords here
for that three ounce nugget that Vern's mate found.
Alright, we'll start here.
Vern's 14 tonne front loader
can quickly strip away undergrowth and topsoil -
to expose pads of virgin ground ready to be detected.
Two hours in, so roughly 300 bucks.
Hopefully we can make that back by finding some gold out here.
We'll start over in this corner.
What do you reckon, mate?
Well, that's me done.
That's pretty much an hour of, ah, no signal.Yeah.
We can't go any deeper here. Maybe over there.
The plan is do a couple more cuts in this area, nice and deep.
It actually sounds like you're already hitting that calcrete.
Yeah, nah I can feel it and see it.
Calcrete is a layer of compressed rocks and dirt
as hard as concrete.
You do occasionally get nuggets hiding in the calcrete
but very rarely.
I mean, we might be wasting our time
and our money.
Come on, bite in.
The wheel's spinning.
This is hard, too hard on the loader.
Move, move, move!
Quickly! Come on!
Get out of here.
That's why these guys didn't dig it all out.
They've got unexploded plugs down here.
I tell you what, if I would have hit that with my backhoe bucket
it would've been all over.
Peep the safety fuse, it's like an unexploded bomb down there.
Nobody's going near this hole again.
In the remote Western Australian goldfields,
an unexploded charge has forced Shane Calegari
to evacuate an old mineshaft on his Galah lease.
My great grandfather lost his leg at Leonora
under exactly the same circumstances.
They drilled into an old plug, blew his leg off.
So I'm going to make sure
nobody else goes down there again and we're done here.
We've got the bucket and the backhoe down there
so we need to get that out really, really carefully
without touching anything.
Over time, nitro-glycerine leaches out of explosive charges
forming extremely fragile crystals.
If this crystalized nitro-glycerine is disturbed
the explosion could be fatal.
Kate, I'm out!
Good job.
I'm glad that's out of me life.
Yeah, well... Shane, what do you reckon?
Is it still safe to take this material from the top here?
As long as I don't let any material
fall down that hole, it won't be a problem.
So we need to sieve it
because we can only send fine materials
through the wet plant,
through Mr Fragile and we really need the fines.
The gold is in the fines anyway.
OK, Kate, just run it down to Mr Fragile
but do not back it up.
I'll come and talk to you.
Now, Kate, there's something I've got to tell ya.
What's wrong?
The brakes are a bit average here, right?
OK? Yeah.
Just back it up there as slow as anything
and as soon as I say stop, just stop.
I'll put a chock in there and you put the brakes on there
and that will hold up there, OK?
You're in reverse. Are you serious?
Absolute. You can do it. Just get it done. Let's do it.
Right, you need to yell at me, though,
'cause I can't hear very well. I'm not gonna yell at ya.
I really, really hope I don't run him over
because this could be really dangerous.
And if I roll back down the hill
then I'm going straight into the camp.
That's it, Kate. Now give it to her.
Straight back? Yeah, straight back.
Keep going!
So the doctor has basically said
I'm stuck in this sling for, like, four weeks, mate.
I've just bruised the bones in my elbow,
smacked the tendons around
and I've got a heap of swelling in there.
You're going to have to rest that arm like they told you to
or it won't get better, Andy.
Yeah, I know.
It's just such bad timing.
In far North Queensland,
Jacqui and Andrew have suffered a serious blow to their hopes
of hitting target,
before the looming monsoons end their season.
Storms are just around the corner.
I know.
We're running out of ground to detect.
It's a massive property.
We're going to go see Adam.
Get some new ground.
What am I going to be able to do with one hand?
We'll make it work.
It's just what we do.
We'll get through this.
The pair are meeting with Adam Mellers who manages
the 1,300 square kilometre Palmerville Cattle Station.
Hey, how are yous?
We're on the hunt for some fresh ground, hey?
I've just been thinking about some options.
Um, the station has got a lease that it's coming up for renewal
and, um, we want to just make sure
it's worth extending the lease.
We'd like you to go there
and see if you could prove it up for us.
But if you do that we'd want
at least 50 percent of everything you get.
It would be good to search the ground, definitely. Um...
It's going to be hard with just one of us, mate.
We're only one set of hands at the moment.
It's going to be a struggle.
My young son Nash has come up for school holidays.
He's always wanted to learn about gold.
He'd probably be happy to go and give yous a hand
if you were interested.
What do you reckon?
I reckon we should do it.
Alright, then. Good. Yeah, right. We'll do that.
Sounds good. Cheers.
Good on ya. Thank you.
I'll send Nash over.
Their new team mate, 16 year-old Nash Mellers,
is meeting them at their new hunting ground -
the two kilometre square Capricorn lease.
This is like the last roll of the dice for us.
I know.
I just really hope it pays off.
Oh, this will be him. Yeah, here he comes.
How are yous? Yeah, good.
Nash, is it? Yeah.
Yeah, Andy. Good to meet you, mate.
Yeah. Jacqui.
Thanks for coming down. How are you? No...no worries.
So you ever done this before, mate?
Nah, never, but I'm pretty keen to learn.
Excellent. Well, we're pretty keen to teach you
so I'm just going to grab a pick and a bucket
and I'm going to go and collect some dirt.
And I'll go down to the water holes
and, yeah, just pan it off.
Hopefully I can get some good fine gold somewhere.
Yeah, well, we'll jump on these detectors
and we'll just start searching these gullies nearby.
Well, best of luck. We'll catch up with yous, hey?
Yeah, let us know how you go, Andy.
And we'll just start walking up the creek.
Move the detector around
so it's always sort of touching that bottom.
Yep.
This is all good for trapping gold
in these low points and crevices
'cause it gets stuck in the bedrock
where the river pushed it through.Yep.
All these clays here - gold can get trapped in them
so you sort of want to swing your detector
up and over these clays.
That's running nice and smooth
and I think you got a good idea of what to do.Yep.
Alright, cool. Well, I'll see you soon.
Righto.
Dad, um, threw me under the bus and said that I would come out
so...which is pretty good, actually.
I was hoping to meet Jacqui and Andy
and now I get to work with them, which is pretty cool.
Hopefully we get their target.
It's a lot.
So I've left Nash down the other end of the creek.
These cattle boys are hard workers
and I think he was a pretty quick learner
so we'll see how he goes.
The plan of attack is to cover as much ground as humanly possible -
or super humanly possible -
because that's what it feels like at the moment.
(BEEPING) Ooh!
There we go.
(BEEPING) Sounding pretty good.
Oh, there it is there.
Good old wire.
So I'm just going around this main gully
taking gravels out from behind the rock bars,
pan them off and seeing how much fine gold's here.
It's really the information that the lease owners
want to know the most.
While we're giving away half our gold,
our agreement with Adam is still really good, I think.
We were running out of ground to work
so at least we've got some option to get some good gold now.
But we need 35 ounces out of this -
that's more than we've found all year to date.
That's huge.
Working this at this stage in the season
is a massive gamble for Andy and I.
We do really have such limited time left
with the elements chasing us out left, right and centre
but we're not quitting until
we are literally forced out of here.
It's to the death at this point.
Just keep pushing.
What do you reckon, mate? Is that deep enough?
Uh, it's going to have to be for now.
Your front wheels were off the ground 90 percent of that, ah,
that push then.
In remote Western Australia,
Alan and Salty have had a frustrating start to their week
using a 150 dollar an hour loader
to push and detect on the Mount Jackson lease.
Uh, so far not so good.
Ah, but I'm only a third of the way through this, um,
these deeper cuts.
(BEEPING)
That sounds nice.
Um, just knock, knock that out there.
(BEEPING) Still there.
Yeah. Ooh!
There we go. Look at that.
Well, there you go.
It'll be a gram, I reckon.
(BEEP) So just give that a scrape back.
(BEEPING) Still in there.
Yeah, it's moved. It's right there.
(BEEPING)
Yep, there we go.
Another one. Yep.
Another grammer. What do you reckon?
Yeah, maybe a grammer.
So we got two on that one.
They're not really big size chunks
to keep us going, are they?
Not really kind of breaking even.
Now we're starting a new one,
I'm just going to continue on, uh, down the stride here
and fingers crossed it produces more gold.
If not, I'm going to have to come up with another plan.
Probably getting on 44, 45 degrees right now out here
so it's not pleasant.
Hopefully that's not it.
Oh, it is just swarf from the bucket.
Swarf is a shard of metal that's broken off
from the loader bucket on the hard ground.
While Salty is finishing off the rest of this pad,
I'm just going to do some, ah,
little small cuts over here - just like exploratory cuts.
Alan's plan is not really working for us at the moment
and every minute we've got that machine going
and every cut he decides to do,
that's money out of our pocket...
..because we're definitely in the negative now.
Oh, I can't believe that.
The whole pad we got absolutely nothing.
I got go to talk to Al.
I think we're wasting a bloody lot of time.
Hey, I'm coming behind you, Al.
Mate, what are we doing?
I thought we were just doing one cut?
We should just check them one by one before we make another cut.
We need to do a series of these down strike.
If there's no nuggets in it
then we know that it doesn't go any further
and then we come up with another plan.
Just don't do any more, mate, because, like,
this is coming out of both of our money.
Yeah, I know, I get that. But this has got to be done.
(BLEEP) had enough of this. Oh, well. Fine.
This has got to be done.
Keep going!
Keep going! Yeah. Keep going!
That'll do you Kate. Stop!
Argh! Done.
You've done it.
Did we get there?
We're there, Kate, OK.
Go forward a bit.
Stop!You know I don't have a lot of control?
I know, I know, Kate, you're alright.
In the scorching Yalgoo goldfields,
time is running out for Shane and Kate
to find the seventeen ounces they need to hit target
in what could be Shane's final season
in the goldfields.
OK, Kate, I can handle this on me own.
Go off and do a bit of metal detecting.
Yeah, alright.
You don't have to ask me twice.
Don't have to ask you twice, I know.
I can handle it.
Yeah, so I've just come back up to the shafts
that we moved the dirt around on.
I'm hoping that I can find a couple of nuggets
that we can add to our gold tally for the week.
(BEEPING)
That's a different sound.
Right, there's definitely something in that.
It's in my hand.
Oh, ho, ho.
Have a look at that!
That's gold.
Maybe two grams?
There's got to be more here.
We've just got to keep looking.
(BEEPING)
I'm liking how that sounds.
I think my Dad -
had he been able to come out here -
he would have loved it.
He would have loved pottering around with Shane.
Probably would have given him
a bit abuse about the cleanliness of his site,
but he probably would have had a go at the detecting
on the machines.
You know what? I can see that right there.
Whoa! It's quite flat, quite thin.
We're on the gold, for sure.
The more gold we find,
the more likely it is that a mining deal could go through.
So all that we're finding here adds to that tally
and makes it possible for Shane to, you know, sell his leases.
I got mixed emotions here.
You know, I've been here a long time...
..and, uh, it's going to be sad.
I think about coming up here with me Dad 85 years of age,
coming up here with Russell and all me other friends.
You know, a lot of my life's been here...
..but life goes on.
Well, I'm about to kill this for the last time.
It's all hinging on that thing there.
This location,
I reckon it's got a lot more promise than over there.
A bit more deeper.
We've got to find a lot of gold in a short amount of time.
Alright, rip into this cut.
It's the final day of Alan and Salty's season -
and hiring an expensive loader to push pads
has failed to produce the three ounces of gold
they need to hit target.
This kinda has to be the pad that saves our season
because we're running out of options.
Well, I think this is the last option.
(BEEPING)
Hey, Al? Yo?
I might have something here.
(BEEPING)
Come on.
Ay! (LAUGHS)
Oh, you little ripper.
There's 500 bucks.
That's the loader hire and some diesel.
The rest is profit.
Woo-hoo-hoo, singing!
Oh, mate.
Look at that! That is unreal.
Look at the size of that.
What do you reckon? Eight or nine?
I reckon eight or nine, yeah.
That gives me, ah, even more reason
to widen this a lot further.
Oh, so far so good.
Even more reason to do some more cuts.
I just want to see where this run goes.
(BEEPING)
Yew! Oh, you beauty!
I think that's my biggest one yet.
That's the sound I want to hear.
I didn't expect to hear that this morning.
(BEEPING)
Whoo, there we go.
Bit of a sound there.
On the Palmer River in tropical Queensland...
Come on, please be gold.
..16 year-old first time prospector Nash Mellers
is helping Jackie and Andrew explore a remote lease
with just days left in the season.
Oh! Look at that!
There we go.
The first piece of gold I've ever found.
I'm thinking about a gram or two.
It's pretty awesome if you're telling me.
Oh, yeah, look at that.
There is definitely some good gold in this one.
Might get the high-banker out.
I think if we run a heap of those concentrates
we could end up with a reasonable amount of fine gold.
We've got to make sure we do this job properly
and...and prove this lease one way or the other.
Righto, so just grab a bucket
and slowly start pouring some in there, mate.
The gold rich pay dirt Andrew has found
is fed into the mobile wash plant, or high banker,
via the hopper.
Water, pumped from the river,
will wash it over a series of riffles,
catching the heavier gold particles
and allowing the lighter dirt to be flushed away.
You won't see any gold until we turn it off.
So you just got to keep punching it through, mate,
and at the end of the day we'll sort of have an idea
how we're going then. Yep.
(BEEPING)
You never know with this bedrock stuff,
junk could get stuck in there
but it's actually a great place to find gold too.
Oh, awesome!
Nice.
That's a big chunk there.
I've been finding a few pieces
that still have a little bit of rock in it.
So it means they must be pretty close to the source.
Good ten grams of gold in that one.
(BEEPING) Whoa!
That actually sounds pretty junky.
Straight out of that gravel next to bedrock, could be anything.
(BEEPING)
Sending the machine a bit crazy, though.
Ha ha, yes!
That's a really, really good nugget.
Probably looking at about ten grams of gold there.
Pretty much just picked up a thousand bucks off the floor.
Add that to the total of what I'm getting today
and it's actually really starting to put away
some decent weight -
which is good because it is so hot
and this is probably the only thing
that's fuelling me right now to keep going.
At this stage we are racing to the finish line.
This is pretty much our last chance
to try and hit this season target.
Well, the gold finds so far have been really good
but the heat is just not ideal.
Um, I'm kinda at the breaking point
where it's, uh, we're about to call it
and head off home,
'cause it's just too hot and I would rather be safe.
On the last day of Alan and Salty's season,
they're battling to hit their 15 ounce target
as the temperature climbs above 45 degrees Celsius.
(BEEPING) What was that?
Yeah, look how high the coil is and I'm still picking that up.
Big or multiple?
Oh, I just kicked it out.
Oh, unreal!
400 to 500 dollars.
Like I said, I think there's another one in here.
I'll just check this.
(BEEPING)
Wow!
That is a good sound and it's out.
Oh ho, wow!
Look at the size of that!
No wonder I could hear it so high.
That is massive.
That's got to be two ounces, easy.
That's put a big dent in the target.
This is why we are out here in the heat and the flies...
..away from family and loved ones.
I'm getting out of here.
I'm going to call Salty, stick this in the container...
Oh, that looks good in there.
..and see if we're out of here.
How are you feeling? Man, I'm feeling good.
How about yourself? I've got my doubts.
Really? We needed three ounces.
Yep.
Then we had to take into account the extra two ounces for Vern.
Yeah, gotcha.
And it was about another .3 of an ounce...OK.
..for the loader hire.
So that's 5.3. 5.3.
After abandoning their expedition
to bank on what they thought would be a sure thing,
Salty and Alan are about to find out
if their first attempt at running big machinery has paid off.
5.8.
Yew!
Come here, mate. Mate, we did it.
We did it!
The pair's final week has produced a 5.8 ounce haul
worth over 15,000 dollars.
Alan and Salty have surpassed their 15 ounce target
with a final tally of 17.8 ounces -
over 46,000 dollars worth of gold.
I think our whole season...
It was an adventure.
Pulling us out of the desert and going underwater,
that was awesome.
I hope you are ready for more 'cause we're going back.
Yeah? You reckon? Yeah, we're going back.
We've got enough there to cover some fuel and a bit,
bit more diving gear. Yep.
Let's have a few beers and then, uh,
and then we can sit around the fire tonight
and make some serious plans for next season.
Sounds good.
Cut him off now and see how we go.
Holy!
That is some good gold in there.
How did you guys go?
Uh, it's looking pretty good in here.Oh, really?
Yeah, check out the chunky bits hanging around.
Oh, what?
So you know that there's got to be
some good fines in through there if there's that much lumpy gold.
Righto, so now we've just got to get this off the top first
and then get that mat into there,
without spilling any of the gravels.
Righto, I'll pan it off
and we'll see how much fine gold we get.
And we can weight it up and find out whether this ground
really is good to work on or not.
With the final week of their season over,
Andrew and Jacqui produced nuggets and fine gold.
Now, they're hoping their hard work
will get them over their 50 ounce target
and prove to station manager Adam Mellers
that the Capricorn lease is viable.
Hey, guys, how did yous go?
Yeah, pretty good mate. Pretty good.
Yeah. Bit of weight there.
Yeah, that feels alright. Yeah.
How did Nash go?
Yeah. Good, mate. He worked really well.
Very good. I knew he wouldn't let you down.
Alrighty. See how you go.
Yep. I'm a bit nervous for this.
This is our last weigh-in of the season.Yeah.
A lot of hard work went into it, mate.
Ten ounces of gold. Ten ounces?
And we still got your fine gold to go yet.
I know you guys got a fair bit.
Oh, another 1.1 ounces there, mate.
That's a great load of gold.
You did well.
I think we proved it for you, anyway.
So how did you go?
Did you end up hitting your target?
Nah, we're falling short, mate, which is the way it goes.
We set a really high target.
But getting the chance to search that ground for you,
it's been fantastic.
So I'm happy regardless.
Alright, well, I'll split this up, hey?
That's 5.85 ounces each.
Well, before you go to that trouble,
we really appreciate what yous have done.
We know it's been a hard week
so we'd like you to hang onto our five ounces
and take it as a down payment for coming back -
if you come back next year
and do a little bit more proving up for us.
Done. Very good.
We'd love to come back. It would be a pleasure.
Thanks, Nash, for everything. So what does that mean?
Well, we had 33 ounces. 11.1. That's 44.1 ounces, mate.
For all their hard work,
Jacqui and Andrew will walk away
with over 114,000 dollars worth of gold -
securing their future on the Palmer River.
We'll be coming back next year. Awesome.
We're coming back to the Palmer.
Shane, are you done yet in there?
'Cause I'm finished out here?
Yep, I'm done. Done?
OK, well, let's have a weigh up.
Alright. Let's go do it.
After joining forces and setting a 30 ounce target,
Kate and Shane's first prospecting season together is over.
Well, let's just weigh it up
and see how much gold we actually got.Alright.
Well, that's one ounce, two ounces.
That's 3.1 ounces, Shane.
That's great but I just got something to top that up with.
I smelted that when I was in me kennel there.
Wow.
And that was from all the excess stuff when I washed up the sluice
and cleaned everything up.
Shane, you've just topped us on five ounces.
The five ounce haul leaves the pair over 12 ounces short -
but it's still their best return this season,
giving them a final total
of 46,540 dollars.
Your dad would be very proud of ya.
He never made it, as you know.
And, uh, you've fulfilled something
that he didn't get the opportunity to do.
So, all in all, it's been good.
Yep, but I do have some news for you.
What's that Kate?
I've just been on the phone with Adam
and the mining company have offered you a deal.
OK. Do you want to know how much?
Just write it on a bit of paper and I'll walk away with it.
What do you think?
Well, that's a damn sight more than what I expected.
That's a really, really good result.
I won't even be thinking about this.
I'm done. I'm out of here.
The chapter is finished.
Shane's seven-figure deal
comes with a six figure down payment
and royalties on all future gold finds on the lease.
So I'm going to go.
I'll give the dough to my grandchildren
for their education and their future.
That piece of gold there is yours.Why?
You can take that home, home as a bonus on top
of what your share of your gold is.What?
That's amazing.
That's very good. Oh, thank you.
That's brilliant. Thank you.
So I guess you're going to need a hand packing up then?
Where would I start here?
Just take all the good stuff.
Take all the good stuff? There's probably not much of it.
Get a bulldozer in. It's very, very valuable to me.
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