PAUL VOICEOVER: Over the past decade
I've pulled millions of dollars worth of gold out of the ground...
but my last time around
I fell well, short of my 500-ounce season target.
It was the worst season I've ever had in the gold game.
I took a big hit.
I was down and out.
This season I'm back
with a new team, new ground, new equipment
and a new target and that target this year is gonna be 1,000 ounces.
That's over $2.6 million worth.
I'm pretty sure that the new business partners
are gonna be shocked that I wanna chase 1,000 ounces.
The way I see it, it's basically go big or go home.
The biggest risk this season is the new team itself.
Your business partners have to be people you can trust and rely on...
and trust has to be earned in this game
but only time will tell.
Well, look who it is.
MATT DICKSON (NARRATES): Australia, the oldest continent on Earth,
a land over 4 billion years old.
For generations brave men and women have scoured
this inhospitable landscape to chase the dream of striking it rich.
Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Whoo!
We're on the gold.
This season the hunt continues...
It feels so good to be back.
This is our playground.
..as the biggest ever line-up of Aussie Gold Hunters
move heaven and earth...
This gold better be worth it, man.
..to uncover life changing fortunes.
Whoo!
And with a global crisis driving record prices...
This is literally the biggest gamble of my mining career.
If we don't start seeing gold soon...pretty much finished.
..the stakes have never been higher.
Newcomers head deeper into the Australian outback...
Look out! Look out! Rocks!
..than ever before.
And season vets push themselves to breaking point...
Mate, are you alright?
Death adder. Get bitten by that, you're dead.
..in the greatest treasure hunt on Earth.
I love it! I love it!
Whoo-hoo. Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
Told you, mate. This is what I live for.
That is gold!
Yee, hee, hoo!
Whoo!
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
Hey, Paul.
Hey, Mel, Alex.
How you going? Yeah, good.
Good to see you.
Hey, Mackie. Yeah, good.
Well, between us we've got millions of dollars
worth of machinery,
we've got our team that needs to be paid
and after running costs every month,
which is $50,000
we're going to need a lot of gold to make this partnership work.
We did decide to combine
our businesses together this year so,
that's a high risk but hopefully that means higher reward.
Well, that big reward we're all chasing
is the financial freedom to do what we want.
Yeah. I want to chase it.
I want to chase that dream.
Mine boss Melanie Wood has been instrumental
in buying and selling hundreds and thousands of dollars
worth of leases
across the gold fields of Western Australia.
Her partner, Alex Stead,
has spent the last decade running a dozen different gold mines.
Together they've hauled in over 600 ounces of gold
from their current home, Meldorado,
a 6sqkm patch of dirt outside the town of Leonora.
By joining forces with Paul,
The Gold Devils will share a combined $2 million
in equipment and wash plants, as well as Paul's ten leases,
a combined 100sqkm of gold rich virgin ground.
Well, I've been thinking about our season target,
um and without muckin' around,
um, I want to chase 1,000 ounces.
1,000 ounces?
1,000 ounces.
I just think with everything that we've got,
all the gear, all the leases, it might not be that crazy.
We might be able to hit it.
Yeah, well, that's not a break-even target.
That's just, that's giving us quite a healthy pay day so.
It is.
Well, that's what we want. Big challenge but...
Can we do it?
I'm up for it. Yeah, I'm in.
Yep. If you're in, I'm in.
Alright. That's a relief.
(LAUGHTER)
I thought you we're gonna tell me to go take a hike.
How's ah, Meldorado going?
Should go check the sluices,
see how they're running.
That's a good place to start.
(LAUGHTER)
We're sampling new areas
because it's been a bit hit and miss lately.
We are all set up and we have got water
so it's a good starting point.
But without gold I mean what's the point.
Yeah. There's gotta be gold.
So, we're gonna run a test to see if there's enough gold here
to make it worth staying here.
The target is for every 200 tonnes
I want to see about ten ounces.
So, if we can't get ten ounces by the end of the week ah,
we can't afford to keep operating here.
Yeah, we've just got to think smarter about
how we're gonna approach this target.
If we're running out of gold at Meldorado we have to have plan B.
So, we've got the Phoenix Project still,
that's where the heap leach is running.
There's a whole bunch of pay dirt there stock piled up already.
We also got the Fair Lady
that we can go and have a crack at as well.
So, why don't I go and sample Fair Lady and see
if I can get some gold in the pan but also send some off to the labs.
I'll take off to the leach project
um, check that out.
I've got to get some samples back to the lab as well.
I'll just get that, those 200 tonnes through and...
By yourself?
Yeah.
No, not the easiest thing to do but I can step up and do this.
Awesome. Team effort.
Alright, I'm going to hit the road. Me too.
The Gold Devils need to target the best ground available
so while Alex runs his test to see
if Meldorado is bust,
Paul heads 350km west
to his heap leach processing plant, The Phoenix Project.
And Mel drives 100km southeast
to test Paul's lease
Fair Lady
to assess if it could be
their new home for the season.
While Paul's off checking his leach project
I'm going to go off and sample but, you know,
we're leaving Alex by himself to run the, the wash plant
but we just have to get stuff done right now.
Mel's going to be a really good business partner.
Um, she understands the financial structure
of what it takes to run a mining operation.
Alex is going to be fantastic as well.
He knows his way in and out of all mining machines
and all the recovery methods
we're gonna need to produce gold so
all and all we're going to make a pretty good team.
I'm left here running this plant,
which, it's not easy going
but if there's more gold at either of the locations
they've got in mind then this might be up in sticks and,
and going to a new home.
For the test, Alex is running Barnabee,
a wet plant shaker deck
capable of running the 4 tonne an hour
Alex needs to complete his 200 tonne test by the end of the week.
I've got no time to hang around.
It's full throttle, get dirt through this wash plant,
get 200 tonnes through and hopefully there's ten ounces.
Oh, what the earth's going on out there?
Ah!
No water!
This is not what I need.
Some of the biggest nuggets
that have been found in the world
have been found right here in this paddock
and we are literally 40, 50 metres away
from where a $2 million nugget had been found.
In the heart of Victoria's Golden Triangle region,
Brent Shannon is back on the hunt for million-dollar nuggets.
1,700-ounce lump was found just in here.
And many more were found right down through Catto's Paddock.
500s, 600s.
This is the reason
why I cannot give up hope
on this paddock.
Any moment through here,
we literally might find a life-changing nugget.
These nuggets are huge around here.
Absolutely huge and I'm not gonna give up
until I find one.
Mine boss Brent
and his brother-in-law, Ethan West,
are the Poseidon Crew.
With over two decades experience,
they've unearthed some of the biggest nuggets found
in Victoria since the Gold Rush ended
in the late 1860s.
Mate, we've got a big future ahead of us, Buddy.
Last season Brent sold the team's
254 hectare 'big licence' lease
but it meant giving up consistent fine gold
from their million-dollar wet plant
to chase record-breaking nuggets
on the legendary 5-hectare Catto's Paddock.
I had to sell one dream to try and chase another.
This will be the paddock that might land us the 1,000-ouncer.
The Holy Grail is to find the world's largest nugget.
Whether that's achievable or not I don't know,
but you got to set your bar high.
But the team was a crippling 250 ounces short
of their 350-ounce season target, leaving Ethan at a crossroads.
I've got a new house,
a small family that I'm providing for.
I'm lucky enough to have a base wage but I rely on gold.
That is where the money is for me.
Last season was a bit chaotic.
It was a bit disastrous, and a lot of things
have changed in the circumstances
between now and then.
Cost of living is going up
and house, kids,
you know, it's changing the outlook on my life.
I can no longer just be happy with the money
that I've got and I don't know
how long I can keep doing what I'm doing.
This is high risk high reward and right now
there's a lot more risk than reward
and that's terrifying for me, me and my family.
I hope we land a large nugget.
I hope that we walk away with more than we started
with but hope doesn't pay the bills.
It doesn't get me further ahead in life
and it ain't going to put money in the bank for the next ten years.
Something needs to give. It really does.
Something needs to change
because I can't continue on this path right now.
Hey, Eth. How you going, buddy?
Ready for the big nugget hunt again, mate?
Mate, there's a few things I got to talk to you.
Look, with the way we ended Catto's last year,
I don't know if I can stomach the same season like that again.
I've got no consistency coming out of the ground.
It's...it's hard. I'm not...
I know, it's tough, mate. This mining stuff is tough and...
That's the issue, mate.
I'm, I can't budget anything and right now I don't know
whether I'm earning 50,000 or 250,000
and that's the issue I'm having is, I got me house, I've the two kids.
I just need you to stick with me, mate.
I'm...I'm...I can't make promises. Right?
Exactly what we're going to get 'cause...
I know, you can't make gold appear. 'Cause, cause you can't.
But the moment you drive out that gate
is the moment we're going to find
a 500-ouncer or a 1,000-ouncer, right?
I don't know how much longer I can continue with this rate
that we're on of not finding gold.
That's what I'm saying. I can't hold on any longer.
All I need to know right now,
are you in this season 100%
or do you need to find something else?
I'm, I'm done.
00:11:32.440 -- 00:11:34.640 Anzac Day is a huge day.
It's a day of remembering those who've fallen
and those who've served and those who haven't come back.
In Kalgoorlie, Western Australia,
ex-servicing member of the Australian Defence Force,
Chris Smith and mining partner, Brad McGhie,
are paying respect to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
Whenever the world was in trouble
the men and women of the goldfields
would drop tools and enlist to serve their country.
The Western Australian Gold Rush ended
when they left to fight for our freedom.
Some as young as 14 and one in five of those people
who served never returned.
This season is in honour of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
We're putting it all on the line for ourselves,
for our families, for the gold,
to follow that Aussie dream and hit that ultimate payday.
Hey, Chris, I appreciate you taking me to the Anzac Service.
It certainly makes you appreciate what we're doing out here
and the freedoms we've got.
Let's say we honour them by smashing this target this season
and getting stuck into it eh?
It was quite an emotional experience attending the service.
Now, it's all about the excitement we're gonna get back out there
and we're gonna smash this season.
Brad and Chris have left their families in the city of Perth,
travelling 600km east,
in the hopes of striking it rich
on their Devil's Cut lease outside of Coolgardie.
It's going to be hard like always being away from family.
You know, we spend a hell of a lot of time up here
and we need to find a lot of gold.
Let's hit this season
and get back home to our families again eh?
We don't have any other source of income so this is it.
This has to work.
Yeah, I reckon we set this season's target at 50 ounces.
I think, that's pretty much the bare minimum we're gonna need.
I think, it was a pretty good move offloading that dry blower.
We gave it a go, mate,
and we really didn't have too much success
with it so the next step is to go wet plant.
Last season the Gold Retrievers overcame huge equipment setbacks
to hit their 30-ounce target...
but they wasted tens of thousands of dollars
on a dry blower they couldn't use due to wet weather.
They've now invested in new equipment
that will crush and wash pay dirt to recover gold.
We're going a whole new process this season.
We got the crushing gear, we got the wet plant.
It's going to be a steep learning curve for us but um,
if we can get that up and running, mate,
we're going to do very bloody well, I reckon.
Yeah, there's been a bit of water around.
We should be able to make the most of this wet patch.
Holy crap!
There's been a rollover, man.
Whoa!
I hope no one's in there.
Hello.
Anyone in it?
Are you in this season
or do you need to find something else?
I'm...I'm done.
Alright, alright.
Well, I haven't said anything but what if I told you,
there's a chance we might get the big licence back?
What do you mean? What are you doing, buying it back?
Well, you know, how we sold it last year?
Yeah, yeah.
There's been a few phone calls to and fro
and he's indicated to me
that they might not be able to come up
with the balance of funding for the licence.
Alright, so... Right?
So, there's a very real possibility we might get the big licence back,
to maybe get back to the consistent gold that we left last season.
It's not a absolute, right?
He's asked for about oh, roughly 60 days.
On the back of what we could potentially find here,
and maybe the big licence coming back,
are you in this year?
I'll support whatever decision you make.
Yep. In or out?
I need to know.
Well, I'll be in, mate. I'll back that.
You sure? Yep. I'm in. Hurry up.
Come here you.
Mate, you had me worried there.
I honestly thought...
I'm not a quitter, mate,
but I got to be, I got to put me family first.
Now, let's get digging. Alright.
The more we dig the more chance we can find.
I'm in.
You know, it's important every year
I keep finding gold to keep in business
but this year there's more pressure on me than ever.
I gotta keep the team together and Ethan was looking like
he was about to, about to leave and, you know, my team is my family.
Yeah, you're right to go, Pauly.
No worries, buddy. All good.
Ethan's father, Paul West,
has been helping out for the past few years
since retiring from the construction industry.
Yeah, I understand where Ethan's coming from.
He's got a family, he's got a wedding to plan.
He's just got a lot on his plate
so he's got a lot of concerns.
I also understand where Brent's coming from.
He's got dreams and goals.
Look, at the end of the day we're a strong family unit
and it's good to see that they have sorted it out
and gonna keep working along.
This sort of gold mining's, this is big nugget hunting.
The history shows they were here.
The old timers don't get absolutely everything.
They only have to leave a small patch of ground like that,
with a monster nugget sitting in it like that,
and that changes everything.
Absolutely everything.
Argh freakin' hell!
Eth, I think, we just done a hose, mate.
This is right when we don't need it. Unbelievable!
Is there anyone in it? Nah.
No blood or anything in there?
I didn't see anything, mate.
I wonder if they're still around.
That's a serious crash eh?
Maybe go make a call and I'll have a look around.
I'll go ring. Alright.
Hello! I'm just going to call the cops.
This is a pretty serious accident so I'm going to call it in.
Hello!
I feel worried for the people that were inside that.
It's a pretty heavy wreck.
Yeah, hope no one's ah been hurt in it.
Alright well, that's good.
Alright, yep. Thank you.
See ya.
Chris! Yo!
It's been reported, mate.
They already know about it.
They alright?
Yeah, as far as I know.
Um. They're investigating but yeah.
What, did they say it was stolen or?
Nah, they didn't say.
I mean, they're not going to give me that sort of information but
I did say can we move it off the track and they said that was fine.
Yep.
Bring your car down through here, mate,
and I'll hook the snatch onto the back here.
You just don't know out here.
I mean, that...that could have been
a very bloody serious accident.
Someone could have been killed.
So, um look, hopefully
no one's been hurt and um we'll get it out of the way.
2/3 of Australia's fatal car accidents
occur in remote areas...
Yeah, righto, mate.
We're right? Yep.
..with unpredictable wildlife and cattle on roads
being a major cause of deaths.
Geez that...that would have given him a headache eh?
Any sort of massive trauma out here,
you've only got an hour or so before you're basically a gonner.
It's not just the heat,
it's not just lack of water.
It's you have an accident,
you're stranded.
If you don't have your sat phone with you when you're exploring,
you're a gonner.
Keen to start their season,
Brad and Chris have hauled the wet plant components
straight to their new worksite.
Yeah, so what we're about to do is unload all the gear.
We're going to lay it out next to this water hole that we've built.
We've pretty much spent most of our profit from last year
on this gear so, you know,
there's a lot riding on it, well, and truly.
This 50-ounce target this season is really just to keep us out here.
That's the bare minimum that we're going to need to pay the bills.
It's a good thing we're doing a wet plant this season, Chris.
There's a bit of water in the dam already, mate.
Yeah, it's looking good, mate,
but you know I wanted a bigger, better plant.
I'm trusting you here.
Mate, this'll get our 50 ounces, don't worry about that.
Chris is creating a level surface for the team's
new $75,000 wet plant.
A crusher will smash large gold-bearing rocks
into chunks small enough for the ball mill to pulverise
into a fine sand using heavy steel balls.
The concentrator will then trap any found gold
and recycle the water back to the settling pond.
With this new operation
we need to be pulling at least five to six grams per day
just to make ends meet, just to pay the costs.
The plant that we've got is a little bit smaller
than what I wanted,
less sophisticated that what I wanted as well.
So, Brad, what's the tonnes per hour on all this equipment?
Mate, I reckon we can get two tonne per hour out of this.
So, how many tonne per hour is that concentrator?
That's about five, isn't it?
Mate, the concentrator's about five but the problem
is the ball mill is only about two
so we can only run to the lowest figure.
So, two tonne an hour is what it is.
Well, it's definitely not what I envisaged, mate.
I was hoping we were going to get five to eight.
Unless you want to spend another million dollars,
um this is what we've got but we can always upgrade,
we've got to start somewhere.
We don't have the experience of this so this will get the ball rolling.
We can always upgrade.
If you can go grab the genny for us that would be great, man.
Then I can start sort of get all the wiring
and everything set up as well.
I wanted to buy some plant that was up ready to go
and all we had to do was press go
and gold will come out the other end.
The ideal situation would be
for us to pump 20 tonne through a day.
If we're getting five grams per tonne,
that's...that's 100 grams a day.
That's...that's three ounces.
That is a huge amount per day.
So, if Chris is in a bit of a mood
'cause we're finding three ounces a day,
then I'm sorry ah, he's in the wrong business.
The final piece of the plant is a diesel powered generator.
This power unit is the lifeblood of the operation,
supplying the electricity needed to run the mill,
crusher and the concentrator.
Ahh (BLEEP)!
What?
It's not three phase.
What did you order?
Not that.
It's supposed to be three phase.
We need three phase to run all this gear.
A three phase generator has 180% more capacity
than a single phase model of the same size.
Mate, we've got a whole heap of gear here now that we can't use.
It will run the concentrator but it won't run anything else.
Far out.
Mate, it happens. It happens.
Do you know how hard it is to get another generator?
I know, I know.
Well, this isn't what I bloody ordered.
Mate, that's two weeks downtime.
Yeah, you don't think I know that?
You deal with it, mate.
You deal with it. I'll get one.
I'll get one, don't worry about it.
You go do what you're doing, I'll sort it out.
Alright.
00:22:09.120 -- 00:22:10.680 It's really good that we've all split up
and gone to do different things.
We've got a huge target
so we really do need to hit the ground running.
The pressure's on so we don't have much time to mess around.
While Melanie Wood and business partner
Paul Mackie are testing
for gold on their other leases,
at Meldorado Alex Stead
has been left to run the team's wash plant by himself.
Right, that's pretty obvious what's happened.
The pump should be full of water and it's not so that hose must be
getting close to the surface
and it's pulling air up through the pump,
the pump's lost its pressure
and we lost, ah, all the water to Barnabee.
As the water level in the dam dropped,
the intake hose has sucked in air,
creating an air bubble
causing the pump to lose suction.
So, the long
and the short of that is,
I've got to get in that dam,
which the water is not appealing,
reposition that hose a little deeper,
prime the pump and hopefully that'll do it.
All the animals have been coming and drinking from this.
This is just fowl.
That stuff floating, is pretty much just cow crap.
Oh!
Just getting this hose a little bit deeper
and a few more hours of water,
that's all I need to get this test through.
This is a back up pump that tops this whole dam up.
I'm going to use it today to fill this up with water,
hopefully get enough suction going,
it'll suck its own water up the hill.
If Alex can displace the air with water,
the pump will regain its pressure.
(BLEEP).
Yeah.
At least we got the pump primed.
Oh, well, it's working.
That's all I needed.
Back to it.
No time for a shower.
Let's just get this job done.
Oh!
Right, well, I hope Paul and Mel appreciate this.
(CHEERFUL MUSIC)
I'm just going to lay down some material
and see if we can find some nuggets.
I've got to put us on the board
until Brad can get that generator sorted out.
On their lease outside of Coolgardie,
Chris has left team-mate Brad to build their wash plant
but until they secure a replacement generator,
their only hope of gold is to spread pay dirt
into 15cm thick pads ready for detecting.
So, it's not an ideal start to the season.
We always tell other people come prepared
and here we are, unprepared.
If this system doesn't work
then that could be the end of our season.
We've put all our profit from last year into this,
so if we can't get this up and runnin'
it's just been a waste of money.
Gotta make it work, man. The pressure's on.
If I can get all this ready for a generator, then I'm happy.
This has got to sit below...below the shoot from the, ah,
ball mill so that will dig that right out.
Well, we've set a bigger target this season, um.
We feel a little bit more confident
in what we're doing now but ah I'll tell you what,
if we don't hit our 50-ounce target ah,
it's time to pack up and sell up and go home and get a real job
and I don't want to do that.
We've sacrificed a lot this year.
Kids are growing up without us, the families miss us all the time
and financially we've sacrificed a lot as well.
I really need to try and at least get this set up um,
even if I can get this section set up
and then at least ah, half the job's done.
We spent a lot of money on the off season.
We had big plans of getting that crushing plant up
and running straight away but um, yeah, that's on the backburner now.
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
Oh, there's a target.
At least we've got one good thing that's working...this new detector.
Whatever it is, it's pretty small.
At this stage we need every little piece we can get.
Still can't even see it.
Oh, you're kidding me.
I would never have picked that up with the old detector.
At least one of us has made a good investment hey.
Yeah, it's the first one for the season.
It's nothing to write home about but ah,
hope there's plenty more of those.
Hey!
Oh, that's a nice target.
Whoa! That's in the scoop.
It's a good sign when it's at the bottom of the scoop.
Means it's heavier.
Oh, here we go.
That's a...that's a much nicer nugget.
Two grams that one.
I'm feeling, ah, pretty excited about this to be honest
with you, so I think we're ah, we're on a winner.
Well, this was the bit that was worrying me,
trying to get this to line up.
Just trying to work out how to do it
so I'm absolutely over the moon with this.
Yeah, that's put me in a much better mood.
Finding gold always puts a smile on my face.
Oh, that sounds nice.
Wow!
Ooh! That's got a really nice sound.
Holy dooly!
Saw that straight away. Would you look at that?
Little shard of it on the edge there.
Ooh, hang on.
(LAUGHS) Holy crap!
That's a nice little nugget.
It just proves that the gold is wrapped up in the...in the rock.
That's what we want the crusher for.
It'll get all these little bits and pieces out of this bigger rock
but I'm keeping this one.
That's ah, one of my nicest finds yet.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! That's beautiful!
If we don't' see good gold out of this clean up
that could be game over for this site.
It's got to be at least ten ounces
or we're burning diesel and washing rocks
just for the hell of washing rocks.
While the Gold Devils run a test to see
if the Meldorado lease will be their home this season,
team leader Melanie Wood is 100km away on the hunt
for a back-up plan.
It's always important that I stay two steps ahead,
especially if it's not doing so well, at Meldorado.
I have to be able to find other ground that's got gold
so that we can move forward
and we've got somewhere else to go.
So, I'm on the lease that Paul suggested, Fair Lady.
I can actually see why he had a hunch about it.
I can see old diggings here from the old timers.
So, you've got a...a quartz vein running just down here.
2.5 billion years ago, hot, pressurised fluid carrying gold
and quartz from the Earth's mantle
travelled towards the surface along fault lines,
before cooling and hardening into gold-bearing quartz veins
that shed gold as they decompose,
forming nugget rich pockets.
Hopefully they got a lot of gold out of it but,
you know, hopefully they left some gold here for us too.
And then they've come up here and just knowing that the old timers
have been here and they've obviously found gold,
it's a really good indication.
They were after, you know, like 20 grams per tonne,
which is a crazy amount of gold
and we'd be happy with five grams so yeah,
I think, there's a good chance that they've um,
left some gold behind.
I'm just going to grab something to break the rocks
with and some sample stuff so bags and a pan.
So, I'm using a dolly pot.
They're pretty old school.
Ah, it's just a good way to crush them up and um,
you know, get it down a bit finer,
put it through the pan with some water and see
if there's any um, visible gold.
While Mel puts her prospecting skills to the test,
team leader Paul Mackie
is 450km north-west
running a test to prove that the heap leach
on his 2sqkm Phoenix Project is about to pay off.
I really need this heap leach to actually work.
I need to produce a hell of a lot of gold.
If we've got to move the other project
then we're tens and tens of thousands of dollars
in moving costs so I need that gold to cover it.
The leaching process is over 500 years old.
It works by pumping cyanide solution through gold bearing dirt.
The cyanide drains down through the heap and binds to gold particles
before it's pumped through columns of black carbon that trap the gold.
The cyanide is then pumped back onto the heap to repeat the process
until every microscopic particle of gold is trapped in the carbon.
So, I'll go and get a head grade sample first
and then we'll grab a carbon sample
and then come back for the tail sample.
Cyanide in the right doses it'll kill you straight away.
The samples will reveal if there's gold in the heap,
while the carbon test will determine
how much gold has already been recovered.
Got to get these off to the lab now and ah, get them tested.
Then we should know exactly how much gold we have in the carbon,
what's loaded and whether we can dump it.
Yeah, liquid money.
In a couple of days hopefully we've all got some really good news
to share with each other.
You know, I'm a numbers person so I don't really want
to spend all the money to get machinery up here
if there's no gold here.
You know it has to be viable to move forward
and move up here and, and mine gold.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, that's a good sign,
just from that small amount of rock
I can see some obvious pickers here
so it will be interesting to see what results come back from the lab,
especially with fine gold as well.
I'm actually really happy about that.
00:32:33.920 -- 00:32:36.320 Hey, Eth, I think, we've just done a hose, mate.
This is right when we don't need it.
Unbelievable.
O ring. It is?
It's out, mate. It's out of here.
So, it's out of the O ring.
It's a lot better than using the hose...
So we won't need a new hose. Oh!
Eth, I took that O ring kit back home, mate.
I don't think we got any O rings here.
Bloody hell! Are you for real?
Nah, I took them back to the shed the other day.
I needed them back there so you're going to have to run back
to Bendigo, mate, regardless.
Yep.
20 cent O ring.
It's just a couple of hours. Yeah.
It's back in the shed on the bench yeah?
Yeah. OK?
This 20 cent part has brought us down to our nails basically.
This could have been completely avoided
if we had that kit here.
And this is what frustrates me, is we have to do things like this.
It's, you know costing us thousands and such in time.
You have 5,000 PSI pressure coming down these pipes and it
pushes...a piston behind this cylinder pushes that out,
which makes the bucket crowd.
And right in here there's an O ring and it looks like
it's actually blown past the O ring
and it's forcing the oil out so we can't use the machine.
We've got to replace the O ring.
But I took an O ring kit back to the shed the other day
and didn't bring it back here
and now it's cost me a couple of hours of rooting around.
Right now the pressure is on big time.
Any time you've got to stop digging, it's money you're losing.
I don't want to come across selfish
but I have to start worrying about me and Chelsea and,
you know, the two little ones.
We want to expand our family even further
and in the current climate it's...I don't know
if I'm going to have the funds or be able to hold out.
I'm in this for the long haul right now.
I've committed to it but we can't afford to have breakdowns
and it...it's kind of frustrating me.
This excavator is the most crucial bit of equipment here.
We can do without a dump truck if we have to,
we can do without a bulldozer
if we have to but we can't do without this.
This is critical to the operation.
So, this just goes in here.
Alright, all done and tight, Eth.
Top her up with oil now and we can get back to it.
And then hopefully we're back in business.
Wow.
It never ends.
It's displaying a symbol here, which I've never seen before.
Something's either overheated or something.
We've gone from a two minute fix
to a 2.5, three hour fix
and now we've got something displayed on here and...
(BLEEP).
Did one of those red buttons get hit, Brent?
No. Did you push one in, did you?
No.
I've...I...that was in a bit.
Try that, Brent. You right there?
That's what it will be. Yeah, try that.
Yeah, that little red safety knob, Brent.
It was pushed in a little bit. As you've opened...
Right.
..the door you must have just knocked it and it's stuck.
It wasn't all the way in but just a fraction, so.
Well, now I know what that symbol is.
I've never seen that symbol.
She's fixed now, mate. Back into it.
Let's get back into it!
This nuggety ground is so uncertain.
You just don't know what you're going to find
from not only day to day but week to week and really,
in the whole year.
But I need to deliver because I need to keep the team together.
I knew it was going to be nugget or nothing but I didn't realise
how much nothing was in between the nuggets.
If we were to get the big licence back,
it would change everything.
But right now I'm missin' the consistency.
I've got nothing to budget off. I've got nothing to go by.
I feel like I'm living week to week.
After we finished scraping out a hole,
we get down here and detect
because could be gold left behind,
either in the walls or on the deck.
Right, we got a target in the wall here.
Right about there.
So, what you can actually see, this is actually virgin bedrock.
Look how hard and solid that is.
In here you can actually see where the old timers,
they've been taking all the bedrock and they've stopped right here.
Look at that.
There they've started working here again.
I can dig it with me hand, that's how soft it is.
Here, I can't dig it with me hand.
That's virgin ground.
In that area there, there could be 1,000 ounces sitting there.
This is the stuff that excites me.
I've knocked it down.
There you go.
Look at that.
I know, it's only a small bit of gold
but that could have been 200 ouncer.
They keep leaving patches like this,
one day they're going to leave a big pocket of gold
that's going to yield a massive nugget for us.
That's a strong little target.
It's only little but it could be gold.
There it is. Bit of gold.
It's a good start. We're on gold.
There's got to be a whole lot more of these though
to make this pay off for us.
Now, we're starting to come onto gold,
I'm just slowing me swing speed down a little bit,
keeping me sweeps nice and close.
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
When I start hearing signals like that, that's money.
That's ah ching ching to me so.
This is exactly why I get excited.
There it is there. Fell out of me hand.
So, this is a nice little chunk but this is getting onto chunkier gold.
If we keep getting buts like this,
this is where our days start adding up.
That's a really good sign.
I'm...I'm happy with that, I really am.
And again I'd say it's gold.
We've got three targets now off this one pad.
If it continues at this rate,
we should start adding up some gold really quick
and this is what I was hoping for.
This is what I needed.
So, all that conversation with Brent might have been a bit premature.
How ya going there, big fella?
Yeah, good, old boy.
What are we doing? A weigh-in are we?
Outside of Coolgardie, the Gold Retrievers Chris Smith
has returned with the team's only gold for the week.
It's not a lot to write home about.
Well, mate, we haven't had a hell of a lot of time
to even look for gold so, you know, anything's better than nothing.
Getting on a roll with this plant set up.
The main part of it's here but we need a generator.
You know, I've put the phone calls out, mate,
I'm just waiting to hear back.
Fingers crossed we'll get something.
It's all we can do. Yeah, what have you got, mate?
I'm sort of itching to see if you've found anything.
Yeah, just a little bit, mate.
I tell you what, we bloody need it.
So, 0.042. Alright.
I'm happy just to see gold coming out of that area.
I then came across this little sucker.
Oh, nice little speci eh? Yeah.
That brings it up to 0.3.
That's bloody good.
That's really good. That's really good.
Yeah, I actually did even better...
You found another one?
I did, mate. Check that out.
(LAUGHS) Holy crap!
You need to name that one, mate.
That's a pearler. Yeah.
How about the Anzac biscuit?
Very, very appropriate, mate.
Good name. So, that brings us up to...
Holy crap, man. ..2.036.
Bloody hell.
(LAUGHS) Well done, mate.
Well done. That is so good.
Well, I think, there's 0.5 ounce of rock in that gold.
So, let's say 1.6 of real gold.
That's good, man.
The 1.6-ounce haul
will cover their costs
after a difficult start.
If we're finding that
jagged little gold embedded in the rock
that's what we need to pull it out.
That's exactly what we're looking for, mate.
So, nah, well done, man. Yeah.
Right it's been a tough week. Let's go and have a beer eh.
It's getting late. Absolutely yeah.
Let's do it. Well done.
So, how did Alex go with ah, Barnabee?
Well, Alex um, fell in the pond.
You're joking. Yeah, with all the cow shit.
(LAUGHS)
He had about three showers
but ah, he still stank.
Oh, I got to rustle up some jokes when he gets here.
Yeah.
Outside Leonora, the Gold Devils are about to discover
if Meldorado will be their base or if it's time to pack up
and find a new home for the season.
I'm excited. Hey.
Hey, guys.
What are you chuckling about? Oh, nothing.
Oh, I just heard you went for a swim.
I've still got the taste of cow in my mouth so um,
I'm never living this down am I?
Alright, so how did we go? Well...
Sounds good. Sounds good.
I haven't weighed it so, you ready for this?
Mm-hm.
Some nice little chunky pieces there.
5.7.
So, it's not the ten we needed.
A disappointing 5.7 ounce return
means the team move their operation
to have any chance
of reaching their huge
1,000-ounce season target.
We've still got other options like you were just telling me
that the sampling you did out there was really, really good so.
Yeah, Fair Lady was really good.
When you say really good, I mean,
how much better is Fair Lady?
The samples that come back from Fair Lady
were 0.1 ounce per tonne.
That's almost four times what we got from Meldorado.
Yeah.
But on that, the results came back from the...the leach,
the carbon loading is...is high so at the moment
she's already sitting around the two kilo mark
that we're going to recover.
Wow! Yeah.
Do you know what? I...I think, we're...we're done here.
This wasn't the start that we wanted,
you know, moving camp.
That's a huge thing.
Yeah, it's going to be scary actually.
But you know what, it's going to cost us more if we stay here.
Good point. Well put.
Can't waste any time.
We've just got to get the trucks in,
get the cranes in and just move out.
Alright, lock it in. Alright.
Let's organise it then.
Got the scales?
Got everything, mate. Got everything?
Got the gold? Rightio, boys.
We're back again.
It's the Poseidon Crew's first weigh-in of the season
and Brent needs to put enough gold
on the scales to ease Ethan's doubts.
Thanks for putting all the pressure on me big time.
It is what it is. Alright, boys.
But all the smalls...
comes to 2.41 with all the bigger bits included
brings us to 4.39, which is around about you know,
nearly 11 grands worth of gold there.
Would have been nice to have some more out of it
but in this ground it's not too bad.
Alright, Eth, I always set the target
and you always think I'm a dreamer.
What do you reckon you set the target this season?
Oh, put the pressure back on me.
You set the target, mate.
Mate, look I... You set whatever you want.
I've thought about it, mate.
For me to stick around for more seasons to come,
I need 100 ounces.
I reckon there's a good chance
we'll smash that out of the park at any moment.
Well, that's... OK?
That's the bare minimum, Brent.
That's what I can work on. You can work on those figures?
With my percentage out of that, I can work on that.
The team will need more
than a weekly haul
of 4.39 ounces to hit Ethan's
proposed 100-ounce target.
As long as we're still getting gold, Eth,
we're in the hunt.
So, if we just keep digging here, the big nuggets will come.
I'm telling ya, when it happens, boys,
you're not going to believe it.
I'm just hoping it happens before you walk away from me.
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