This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Change of plan - Kim's got poachers. I'll get straight down there.
..halfway through the season, The Ferals confront a gold thief
who's raided their lease...
He's taken it from Bridget and Levi. Got you on camera, mate!
..as they battle to hang onto their job.
Four ounces is really not negotiable, OK?
If we don't get that 4oz, Kim's going to kick us off the lease.
Jacqui and Andrew get their big break as professional lease explorers.
This is what we're chasing. That's lovely, hey?
Nice, chunky gold.
But a fuel leak stops them reaching their target zone.
We could have damaged a fuel line.
And The Gold Retrievers head off-road to explore a remote, new lease...
Urgh! You all right?
..and discover fresh gold ground that could transform their season.
Oh, my God. Woo-hoo, that's a nugget!
According to the map, Ben's cut should be a little bit up here.
He knows where we're supposed to go, he's got all the maps.
I get excited thinking about
how many nuggets are waiting for us to come get 'em.
G'day, guys. G'day.
How are we? Good. This is Jacqui.
Andy. Good to meet you, mate.
We're meeting Ben at Cannibal Creek.
He's going to show us what roads have been opened
and what area to search.
This is what we're finding. That's lovely, hey?
This is our first gig as lease explorers, and it's pretty exciting.
We've worked hard to get to this point.
In far north Queensland, on the remote Palmer River Goldfields,
prospecting partners Jacqui Buzetti and Andrew Leahy
have secured their first-ever job as lease explorers
for a local mining company.
A track runs down past the dam, and puts you into this zone.
Awesome. A fire has blown through from the east,
opened all this country up.
Right. You're really on the cutting edge of finding gold here.
These tracks have been closed off for 40 years.
That's good to hear, this is a big opportunity.
We'll record anything we find and bring it back to you. Fantastic.
Get all that information back to the exploration company.
Talk to you soon, see ya. Good luck.
Cannibal Creek has great potential for gold-mining,
they just need someone to compile a report
and let them know where gold areas are.
We'll be going down tracks that maybe haven't been driven for years.
That's why so much gold is left here.
It's hard country - hard on people, hard on machinery.
The mining company is sending the pair on a 30km slog
deep into the rainforest
to explore a potential lease near an area known as Cannibal Creek.
We get to keep all the gold we find.
In exchange, we'll keep the GPS coordinates.
They'll know where to kick off when mining starts.
Ben was saying, no prospectors have been here for 40-odd years.
No good detectors have ever been over this ground, then.
Nothing like what we're running today.
This season... (LAUGHS)
Woo, check that out! Nice!
..Jacqui and Andrew embarked on a month-long quest
to the wild Palmer River Goldfields...
I'm hoping there's gold caught up on these boulders.
..which ended with their greatest gold haul ever.
5.74 ounces of gold, mate.
Nice! That's wicked, that's what we came for. That's the river of gold.
Their success has led a local mining company to give them their big break
as professional lease explorers.
We've got to try and hit the best ground we can real quick.
We're at the halfway mark of our season.
We have to keep working hard to get this gold out of the ground.
We'll have to head south, and have a yield a gold
like the Palmer River has.
We've got to really make it count.
Can you smell that? Smells like diesel. Yeah.
There's definitely something wrong.
Oh, that reeks! Great (!)
A diesel leak somewhere. Wonderful (!)
I don't see how we could damage a fuel line right up in the engine.
It IS dripping.
This is prospecting all over. Yeah.
If it was just a matter of finding gold, everyone would do it.
Seems to be on top of the motor.
We'll get back to camp and check it out then, eh?
It's about 10 Ks back to the station camp.
I really hope the car makes it.
It will take over an hour to nurse the car back to the camp
they set out from.
That diesel reeks, hey? And the one thing we're far away from - fuel.
I know.
We've made it. I'm counting my lucky stars.
How're you going? Good, good.
Good mate, you right? For sure.
Jacqui. How are you?
What's been happening? Chasing gold. What about yourself?
Work, work.
The Western Yalanji Rangers, led by Archie Levers,
are based at the station camp.
As the traditional owners of the Palmer River,
they protect and manage the land, and are on call for any emergencies.
Can you help us out? We've got a fuel leak in the car. OK.
Can you see if you can sort it out?
No worries. Pop the bonnet, and we'll have a look.
This is our first job as lease explorers.
We really need this chance to prove ourselves.
Instead, we're stuck with car troubles.
Who knows how long this could take. Doesn't look like an easy fix.
No, not in the middle of nowhere. We'll grab some tools
and see what we can do, eh? No worries.
I don't think we'll get time to set up camp.
I reckon we just get the quaddies off, and just go for it.
I was just thinking that myself, mate, that's a really good idea.
Cool, man. Let's do it, eh?
In Western Australia's central Goldfields,
The Gold Retrievers, Brad McGhie and Chris Smith,
are moving 40km north from their current dig site
to the new Nugget Hill lease.
Disappointing, leaving the lease we're on.
We'd just started hitting it. It's hard to walk away from gold,
but sometimes you don't have a choice.
The Devil's Cut is on hold at the moment -
the digger has broken down.
We'd need that excavator to continue that work.
We need to keep going, we don't have time to have a week off.
Last week...
(DETECTOR BLIPS) (LAUGHS) There we go!
Awesome!
..after excavating a gold-rich quartz vein on their Devil's Cut lease...
Keep detecting if you find another one.
..The Retrievers came through with a bumper haul.
That's wicked, eh? 4.924!
That's good.
Now, at the halfway point of the season,
with their digger out of action, they must find gold elsewhere.
All right, mate, this looks like a good spot to camp.
We'll go from here, eh? Spot on, mate, this looks great.
We're a million miles away from anywhere, so we need to be safe,
make sure we've got our GPSs, safety gear, water.
At 2 square kilometres, their lease is unexplored, rough outback terrain
with no tracks.
Good to go. Let's get into it, eh?
We've got the quaddies, that'll help us explore more ground,
get into places we can't get with a car.
I'll get the detectors, and we'll get into it.
As soon as you find something, let me know.
I'll check in every ten minutes anyway. Yeah.
The plan of attack this week - a little bit of exploring,
put detectors across the ground, bring the loader up if it's viable.
Find that for me, Nuts! (DOG BARKS)
What do you reckon - ground here somewhere?
Just looking where the ground changes, the bottom of valleys,
where gold could have rolled down.
This looks pretty good, this'll do me.
We could be one swing away from a massive nugget.
Oh, wow! Check out that quartz below.
I've put my life into this now.
We've got to make it pay a full-time wage.
I want to show the family that this was the right decision.
It'd be nice to find a nugget in amongst this.
Where the veins of quartz pop out of the top of the ground,
hopefully, it's pushed gold up.
We need to find something to make it worthwhile keeping this lease.
Not getting any targets at all.
I think it's time to keep going.
We've got a short time to spend on this block,
we've got to make the most of it.
(ENGINE LABOURS, THEN CUTS OUT)
Damn! I will not be defeated on this!
(ENGINE LABOURS)
(ENGINE DIES)
This is so embarrassing!
I'll never get into this.
Hey, Brad? Brad, you on-channel?
Yeah, got you, mate.
Mate, ah, can you head my way?
I'm down in that big river system, but I can't even get out.
I'll start heading your way.
One of the most embarrassing days of my life is having Brad tow me out.
I'm usually the one that does the towing. (WHISTLES)
What are you doing, mate? (LAUGHS) Save it, mate.
Just get me out, I'm over this. Righto.
Having a good mate as a partner up here is very important.
He's like family to me.
Righto!
We have to support each other. We've got each other's back every day.
You look like Colonel Klink in the trenches. Just get on your bike!
Righto, let's give it a go, eh?
You good? Ride out.
(GRUNTS) You all right?
(LAUGHS) Yes!
We got you out. We'll have a look around.
Stay a bit closer, I can't trust you near these sort of creeks.
All right, follow me back. (LAUGHS) Yeah.
We've got each other's backs. We'll make this game work.
Chris got lucky that we got him out.
They're the sort of problems we can run into - stupid, but problems.
We haven't found gold yet,
but we'll keep persisting, and surely, we'll be rewarded.
It's just started getting warm, if you haven't noticed, mate (!)
We're lucky to have another month before she starts cooking out here.
In remote Western Australia, it's the halfway point of the season
for The Ferals - Ryan Peters, Levi North,
and his wife and new team member, Bridget.
It won't be long it'll be up into the high 40s.
We need to find as much gold as we can
before that temperature gets high.
We're halfway through the season, and we're going to go 5.5oz,
that's nowhere near enough. Nothing to brag about.
Once the little digger comes back out, we'll go back to The Honey Hole
and open that up. Sounds good, mate.
If we're not producing, we're not a viable operation,
and your uncle will move us on.
For The Ferals... Why are we having bad luck?
It's not anybody's fault. ..weeks of poor yields
and rising tensions
led to the exit of 30-year mining veteran, Rob Beeton.
I'm hurting inside, but I'm getting out of prospecting.
Despite striking a new deal with Levi's uncle, Kim North,
to work his 2-square kilometre Honey Hole lease for a 70% cut,
the gold remained light on the scales.
If we don't find gold, that's the end for The Ferals.
For Levi and Bridget, there is now even more incentive to hit target.
I'm concerned about having you and the baby out here -
it's getting hot.
We have no choice, Levi.
Levi and I are excited that we're having a baby,
but it does bring extra financial pressure
and has changed things a little bit.
(PHONE ALERT)
That's Kim. "I've been trying to call.
There's been poachers on my lease. Can you check it out?"
Change of plan here.
Kim's sent us a text - he's got poachers.
I'll drop this caravan off, and get down there.
The Honey Hole lease is still a 15km drive away over rough dirt track.
As soon as one person knows, they tell all their mates,
and before you know it, you've got half the town digging up your gold.
What these poachers don't understand is that
Kim's got eyes and ears everywhere.
I'm not far from the lease now.
I'm going to back off a bit, set the drone up, and chase him down.
Hopefully, I can sneak up on him.
If Kim has any chance of prosecuting this fella,
I need to get him on video.
The maximum fine for illegal prospecting is $150,000,
but securing a conviction often depends on photographic evidence.
There he is.
You're doing the wrong thing, aren't ya?
I can see him clearly, I can see him detecting.
I've got to get in tight on him, get a shot of his number plate,
hopefully capture his face.
He's spotted me now!
Yeah, I got you, buddy.
Mate, he's picking up rocks!
I'm a lot higher than he can throw.
Got his licence-plate number, got him in the act.
I don't know where he'll go, there's only one way in and one way out.
He's on his way! Good luck - I've got you on camera, mate!
What he doesn't realise is, he can lose everything.
I'll try and find the track he went in on. Here we go.
Mate, you're kidding me?
This is ridiculous!
That's a deep hole, so that's a decent piece of gold.
He's stealing money off me, off Bridget and Levi.
You put your heart and soul into this,
and it takes one idiot like that to ruin it.
There's that other line done. That's good, mate.
Hopefully, that should get you through, brother.
It's only got to last a week or so.
On the wild Palmer River Goldfields,
Jacqui and Andrew have been forced to put their lease exploring on hold
to get a fuel leak fixed.
Once we'd cleaned that diesel away,
we could see the fuel injector wasn't seated properly.
We retightened it, it was good to go.
Too easy. What are friends for? That's it.
Especially in the middle of nowhere. That's right. We'll keep rolling.
Have fun, be safe. See you, mate.
Look after that car. I'll try.
Maybe you should let Jacqui drive, eh? Hey, easy!
Yalada!
The car trouble has cost the pair four hours of vital detecting
and exploring time.
I thought Andy had just about broken our target for the trip,
but we are still on the road.
A nice, big golden nugget would turn this day around, that's for sure.
Hopefully, this gold down here is as good as what they say. Yeah.
Righto.
Hell of a mission to get here, and we're half (BLEEP) already.
It's important we get onto gold quickly.
The bills don't stop coming in, the gold can't stop either.
We're not far from where the gold rush started.
Imagine being here 150 years ago.
The lease the pair have been hired to explore
is on ground once at the centre of an 1870s gold rush
that lured thousands of prospectors.
I don't know, is there gold left here or just the junk remains?
The old-timers often camped right on the gold,
so there's always a chance we're going to get a heap of junk.
It's never a good sign when targets come out so quick.
Gold is not normally hanging on the surface, but junk will.
Bit of (BLEEP) wire.
That's part of the game, is picking up all this junk, of course.
We'll stay on this creek, but we'll move downstream and try again.
The pair are targeting ancient dried-out riverbanks
where gold could have been deposited
when water flowed through here thousands of years ago.
There's the first possible target.
This ground is so rough and compact.
Yes!
Oh, for God's sake!
We got gold.
Yoo! (LAUGHS)
Good job, mate, love your work. I love my work too.
I always try and detect creek beds.
If there's gold at the top of the valley, it'll get washed down
and get trapped in these pockets.
In remote Western Australia, The Gold Retrievers have moved their search
closer to camp.
This looks as good a place as any.
I'm particularly looking along this tree line, running down this hill.
There's a definite line along what I think is an old creek bed.
If gold has run down the hill, I might find surface nuggets.
The ground looks similar to ground the Normandy nugget was found in.
It was found in a creek bed just like this one.
Anything could happen.
We were fortunate to get access to the Normandy nugget
at the Perth Mint.
There she is, buddy!
Mate, you better find out what 820oz feels like.
Worth over $2 million...
That is so heavy! That is crazy.
..the Newmont Normandy nugget
is one of Australia's largest-ever gold finds.
I want one of these now. Let's get back to work.
Absolutely amazing.
They're still around, the possibility of finding one is there.
Keep putting effort in, I think we'll find one.
How hard could it possibly be?
If we do find any sign of gold,
we'll end up bringing the loader down and clearing a patch
and seeing if there's anything slightly underneath the surface.
We're halfway through our season.
We've got to put it into high gear and start pulling in some nuggets.
It's important that we do well this season.
We've invested a lot of money into this.
We've got bills to pay, same as everyone.
The last thing I want to do is put stress on the family
and potentially lose the house.
Ooh, that sounds like a target.
We are definitely onto something.
That's a sweet sound, that is!
That's a good sign - it's at the bottom of the scoop.
Oh, and there she is there.
(SPITS)
(LAUGHS) That's the money!
That's the sweet sound of gold.
That'll be close to 2g, I think.
The 2g nugget is worth over $160.
Another couple of pieces like this,
it'll be worth bringing the loader in.
Every piece of gold we find has just been as exciting as the first.
It's something we've always been passionate about,
but we've got to put food on the table,
so we eat, sleep, and breathe prospecting, at the moment.
Watch it, huh?
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) Is that you?
No, that's a target nuggy!
How exciting is this?
Oh, that's out.
Oh-ho-ho! Please be gold.
Oh, wow!
Oh, my God, look at that!
That is a solid piece of gold.
That's a good half ounce!
The half-ounce nugget is worth over $1,200.
Hey, Brad? Yeah, go ahead.
You might want to make the little journey over here, mate.
Better be worth it.
Hey, mate! What have you found?
(DOG BARKS) What do YOU reckon?
Hopefully, gold. Close.
(LAUGHS)
How nice is that?!
Holy crap! Where'd you find that?
Right there! And I found the other one over there. Good work, mate!
Next step is to bring the loader down. I think so.
I'll make it back down in the morning. Sounds good, easy.
I'll keeping looking anyway. Well done. Awesome, eh?
Find some more gold. Woo-hoo, yeah, boy! (LAUGHS)
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) I think this might be a target.
Oh, yeah.
Ooh! Come on.
Over 1,000km north,
where the blistering temperature is 10 degrees hotter,
The Ferals are back on their Honey Hole lease
after chasing a poacher away.
The poacher found a patch over there.
We just can't afford to be losing any gold.
(LAUGHS) Look at that - nice piece of gold.
I reckon I've got about a 3- or 4-grammer here, mate.
You legend, Levi! Good effort, tracking down that poacher,
but let's put that behind us, cos we're back on the gold
and Kim's not far away with the digger.
We've got a couple extra spots here to dig.
Beautiful. It'll be nice to have gold when he turns up,
put a smile on his face.
We've got the boss man bringing the digger.
We're going to start really chipping away at that 40oz target.
Afternoon. Afternoon!
How're you going, mate? I'm good. Ryan.
Thanks for bringing the old girl.
The Ferals need Kim's 8-ton excavator
to scrape away layers of dirt
so they can detect deeper-laying gold nuggets.
So, we had an intruder, a parasite on site? We did, mate.
I've got drone footage for you. Oh, good.
Got his licence-plate number, a clear view of his face.
Keep an eye on it. People are coming here badly now.
Yup. Anyway, good luck.
All right? Thanks.
Let's get it unloaded.
We got that digger!
With no door. But that's all right, we got a digger.
I'm not spoiling us any more with good gear. (STARTS ENGINE)
Well, it feels good.
You really need 4oz.
4oz is really not negotiable, right?
As long as we've got 4oz a week, happy days.
I'd like to see lot more. 4oz a week is your minimum...
Minimum 4oz a week?
..or on the bikes, all right? We're out of here.
4oz a week - Kim's really dropped the bomb on us this time.
If we don't get 4oz a week,
we're not going to make 40oz for the season.
It's the kick up the bum we need.
Yeah, man, yeah.
One day at a time. It'll be sweet.
We've had a disastrous start to the season.
At this point in time, Kim North is our best option.
I'll be spending a fair bit of time in the digger, out of the elements,
while the fellas detect.
The ground is hard, I'll see what we can do.
It's only Bridget's second week on the digger.
She'll use the blade at the front to scrape away surface dirt
and spinifex grass to expose virgin ground
for Ryan and Levi to detect.
Woo, dust cloud!
I'm still learning with the digger. I'm giving it my best shot.
With practice, I'll get there. It's definitely warming up.
Creeping up to over 40 degrees. Bridget's a trooper.
It's hard enough being out here, let alone being pregnant.
The little digger is ploughing through.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) Got a target.
Hit close, and it's sounding good!
Come on, baby!
Whoa-ho!
She's noisy one.
Woo!
(LAUGHS) There she is!
You little ripper! (LAUGHS)
Man, that's a nice little chunk.
That's got to be at least 3g, I reckon.
Oh, well, better keep moving.
(DOG BARKS)
Hey, Levi and Ryan, I'm worried about
how much oil is coming out of the arm of this digger.
I noticed a bit earlier, but it's just dripping out.
Do you guys want to have a look? No worries, we'll be over in a sec.
All right.
It's not looking good.
Must be coming out of one of the seals on the ram there.
Not good at all. Is it mainly when you move the boom?
No, it's just a constant drip. I noticed a few bits of oil going down
and looked down again, and... She's leaking!
Yep, out of that top seal for that main ram, I think.
Yeah. It's pouring out, isn't it? Yeah.
It'll have to go in and get a new seal kit and everything. Have to go.
It just came back out.
The excavator's boom is controlled by hydraulic pressure.
But extreme temperatures can cause the oil in it to overheat
and damage the seals designed to stop it leaking.
If too much fluid is lost, the pressure drops,
and the boom can no longer be used.
It makes our job harder, without having the bucket work properly.
It's invaluable to be able to scrape the dirt and soften it up
before you push it, but there's no fixing that here. No.
Andy, this is sounding good!
All right.
Still in the scoop.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) (LAUGHS)
Yes. Woo!
Over 3,000km east, Jacqui and Andrew's first job as lease explorers
is finally starting to deliver results.
Andy, the nuggets are growing!
Look! Awesome! Hey, that's not a bad bit.
(LAUGHS) That's a couple of grand.
Yes. They've all come off this bank, have they?
Yeah, and just here. Righto.
Across onto this bank as well? Yeah.
All right, let's get some.
Good ground in this part of the world,
gold should come out thick and fast.
There was some historic finds, a lot of chunky gold from this area.
What do you reckon? Sounds pretty loud.
I know! Starting to get pretty deep.
Wow. (DETECTOR OSCILLATES)
It'd be nice if we could get a bit of gold.
Nice to get a decent chunk.
Two little bits doesn't put much coin in the bank. No.
(LAUGHS) Woo!
That's a beauty! What do you reckon? Hey. 8g or something.
The 8g nugget is worth just over $600,
and is their biggest find of the week.
That's a nice bit of gold.
If we could get a few of these, I'm not worried about the car.
That's given me more energy. Nice work!
We don't have much time left in the Palmer,
so we have to keep working really hard
to get this gold out of the ground.
That's pretty loud.
Any target that loud is usually junk,
but you never know unless you have a look, do you?
What are you digging? Sounds like junk - it's pretty loud.
I hope, for your sake, it's gold, hey, after the day we've had.
Still in the hole too. That's a good sign.
I've got my fingers crossed.
Starting to push down near the clay layer.
It's out now.
Holy... Jacqui!
Check that out! (LAUGHS) Oh, my God!
Look at that! Oh, my God!
Oh, my. That's got to be 5oz of gold. Oh, my God!
That's the biggest nugget I've ever found.
Oh, mate! That's pretty much secured our season.
Here. Oh, you legend! (SIGHS)
Oh, my God, whoa!
Yeah.
Get out! Wow!
Look at this! Let's take it to the creek and give it a wash.
Yes. I want to see what's in there.
We're going to wash this down! Phew! I can't believe that.
Every prospector dreams of finding big nuggets,
but when it actually happens, it's surreal.
Whoa! (LAUGHS)
Well, that was the longest trip ever -
six-hour round trip, very slow going.
Chris is in the loader at the moment,
doing a bit of push where we found those nuggets,
but we've still got to find 21oz, so I'll keep detecting,
see if I can find more spots.
Using their 10-ton loader, The Gold Retrievers must scrape away
10cm to 15cm layers of dirt to find gold deeper underground.
We're trying to get down to the harder ground below this topsoil,
and see if there's anything at the bottom of that.
There's another signal.
That's unreal. This is a great sign.
There it is. Man!
That means this whole creek could be full of nuggets.
They're not huge, but they can add up to our season total.
I'm over the moon. We don't have a lot of time,
the heat is going to start kicking in and get too hot to be out here.
Can you grab my detector and come on down, mate?
We've got a three-row pad to go. Yeah, no worries, mate.
I'm heading your way now.
I'm going to detect this one, Brad will do the first one.
We should be good to go.
Show me the colour.
(LAUGHS) That's what we want to find.
100 of those would work out nicely.
To come up and find multiple nuggets is really good
in the short period of time that we've been here.
We're about halfway through.
Hopefully, we'll hit our halfway target soon.
Oh, that's a good signal.
There's a chance it could be rubbish,
but that's a really good signal.
That's a... That's a big noise.
That's a very big signal, that one.
If it is gold, that's going to be a really good piece of gold.
(LAUGHS) I can see it!
Oh, my God. Woo-hoo!
What's going on? You want to see the size of this one!
Really? Mate, this is a chicken nugget
if ever I saw a chicken nugget.
Did you get the motherlode, mate? Check this out. Hoo-hoo-hoo!
That's a nugget? Yeah, baby!
That IS a nugget! What do you reckon that weighs?
Close to an ounce, buddy. That's one of my best finds yet.
The nugget is worth close to $2,500.
If we get nuggets like that, God knows what could be here.
Absolutely. Ideally, we want to get back at Devil's Cut,
but at least we've got somewhere else to push now.
Let's make the most of that. Awesome, let's do it.
Let's keep going. That's so cool.
Well done, brother! Yeah, man!
Let's go and get some more gold. Yeah, boy! Woo-hoo!
Well, I won't use the bucket.
That'll make a bit of a difference, but she's leaking out. Yeah.
No fixing that here. What should do we do,
do I keep going but take it easy?
The best thing you can do is keep going,
cos we're not going to find any gold without it.
Yeah. That's it.
1,000km north, The Ferals' 8-ton digger is leaking hydraulic fluid,
putting a halt to their mission to hit this week's 4oz target.
Maybe get a rag around that so it's soaking into the rag.
For the meantime, we'll wrap it up, capture it there.
I'll grab a rag and see how we go, but we've got to do something.
The rag will slow the leak and stop abrasive particles of dirt
getting into the hydraulic system and damaging it further.
Just switch her on, Bridge, and lift the arm right up.
That's so frustrating.
The season is halfway through, we've only got 5.5oz.
We've got 34oz to go,
and there's no way we'll find it with a machine like that.
I think it's kind of stopped. Having the arm right open,
it's relieved a bit of pressure on it. Cool.
Lifting the bucket right up with the ram right open
seems to have stopped that leak a little bit.
The machine has just come out, you'd think this stuff would be fixed.
We've used it for a day, and that's it. Don't stop for us, digger!
I just got Bridge to lift it right up... Yeah.
..and open up the ram - it's not leaking any more.
Lovely. I might just tie that around it.
Yeah.
A little rag.
Look at that - just like a Band-Aid. (LAUGHS)
I hope your uncle will understand this is nothing we've done.
All right, sweet. I'll just take it easy,
and I'll let you guys know if it keeps leaking.
All right. We'd better get out of the way. (LAUGHS)
The digger is going, but we're having to nurse it through.
It is slowing us down. It would be nice if that was running flat-out.
If we don't get that 4oz, Kim's going to kick us off the lease.
We can push dirt all day long, but it gets really hard.
You want to break it up with the digger bucket, you can get deeper.
It makes our job harder, without having the bucket.
I've cleared a good bit of ground, it's ready to detect.
Ryan, you go for it, I've got plenty of ground here to work.
Thanks, mate. I'll head over there now.
A little something something right here.
I've got a target.
Yeah, still there.
All right, Levi's got a target, Ryan's got a target.
Let's hope they've got a bit of size to them.
Far out - it sounds big.
Come on, baby, where are you?
(LAUGHS) Look at that!
That's a good 2.5g, maybe 3g if we're lucky.
Gold! It's a beautiful piece.
We're down in that harder layer.
We've got a bit of breeze, which is quite nice,
but the temps are getting up around 40 degrees,
so not only do we need to keep a close eye on Bridget,
we need to keep an eye on ourselves.
Oh, that's out. We've got to isolate it out now,
make it a bit easier to scoop up.
Oh, it's in the scoop, aha!
Those small bits, you get a bit sick of them,
nice to find a bigger piece.
Whoa-ho, that is noisy!
Still in the scoop.
Oh, it's in the hand. I can see it too, there it is.
You little ripper. Woo-hoo! (LAUGHS)
We really need to find more like this, some bigger pieces,
if we're going to make this a viable season for us.
Hey, old boy, let's do this weigh-in, eh?
Sounds like a plan, buddy.
We needed 2oz to pay for the digger. Get it all out, ready, mate.
After being forced to explore a new lease for the week,
The Gold Retrievers are hoping they've found at least 2oz of gold
to cover the cost of repairs on their digger.
What are we thinking, mate? I reckon, 2.8.
2.8? I reckon we're over 3.
All right, let's see, eh? Let's hope you're right.
There's some good gold there, mate.
(LAUGHS)
That is awesome! 3.2.
That's awesome, man, I'm stoked with that. This'll pay for the digger.
We fell down a bit the last few weeks, but we're back on track.
We need to have a big week coming up, get some good gold on board.
With enough gold to cover the digger repairs,
Brad and Chris can return to their main lease to excavate
and give themselves the best chance of hitting their season target.
Get back to Devil's Cut and hit that hard.
Yeah, get back on the money.
I was stressing about the digger,
didn't know what repairs would come to.
We've got that covered, and we can come back here, it's a great option.
I think we deserve a beer. I think we do.
Here we go. Good onya, mate, cheers!
Well done, man. Nah, I'm happy. Woo-hoo!
I really hope it's enough to keep your uncle happy.
We've had to nurse that machine a little bit, but he did say 4oz.
We can only try, and that's what we've done.
Hopefully, he's keen to give us another week to prove ourselves.
One way to find out. That's it.
3.16oz.
Not quite there. I still think it's a fair effort,
but he's a businessman, he doesn't make money by keeping losses.
The Ferals are almost an ounce short
of their boss, Kim North's, weekly target, set just five days ago.
We'll give Kim a call and let him know how much we got,
and see what he has to say.
The ball's in his court. I still think it's a fair effort,
but he's definitely going to move us on.
Three bar. Here we go. (LINE RINGS)
Hey.
Good, mate. How're you going?
We just did a weigh-up.
We got 3.16oz.
Not quite, mate.
We could definitely find more gold if we didn't have breakdowns.
We were making the most of our time out here.
No worries, mate.
Yeah. All righty.
We won't let you down, mate.
Thanks, Kim.
Thanks, buddy. You take care. See ya, mate.
Ooh! (LAUGHS)
I really thought that was borderline then.
He thought about it for a bit too long.
If we got any less gold than what we did,
there was a fair chance he would have thrown us off then. Absolutely.
A bit of anxiety, waiting for Kim's response.
It needs to be financially viable for us to continue.
We need to get that 4oz next week. We need to, yeah.
Ah, well. Pack this up and get some more gold.
Pretty damn lucky.
All right, moment of truth.
What do you reckon the big boy weighs? I'm not sure.
What do you think? I'm going to say, 5oz.
5oz? Yeah.
Over 3,000km east, Jacqui and Andrew are about to weigh in
their first gold haul as lease explorers.
Ready? Yeah.
Oh, yes!
5.98 - that's pretty wicked.
Congratulations! I've never found a nugget that big before.
That's wicked! Good job, seriously!
Their biggest nugget ever skyrockets their tally
to leave them less than $5,000 short of target
with half the season still left.
We wanted to prove that we're great explorers.
Hopefully, we can keep hitting that chunky gold.
Let's put the rest on, and see what we've got for a total. There's more!
Oh, 6.6oz.
6.6oz! That's, like, 15 grand's worth of gold.
We're 1oz behind what we found in our entire season last year.
That's amazing.
We don't have much time left in Palmer, so it's ambitious,
but we're going to go for an extra 15oz.
We've still got half a season, so we're aiming high.
The river of gold - they named it right. You've been good to us.
We've only got one week left, we've got to make it count.
If we're going to get more of these, we'd better make a plan.
Let's do that. Let's do it!
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