That's a great nug.
MATT DICKSON (NARRATES): This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
That's why we do this game.
What other job gives you a rush like that?
Jacqui and Andrew's hunt for a major haul
drives them deeper into the remote Palmer River...
Andy, you're on channel?
..leading to a dangerous situation.
I've been trying to radio Andy,
and I haven't heard anything back.
He could have had a fall. It could be a snake bite.
This isn't right.
Hang on a second. Where's the hopper?
And no conveyor.
The Gold Retrievers face financial ruin.
This is gonna send us broke.
With their wash plants down,
the team is forced to process pay dirt by hand.
We've invested all our money in this,
so, it'd actually kill me to fail.
Jesus Christ.
And wet weather puts the Poseidon Crew's $200,000 rock truck...
..on the precipice of catastrophe.
Right now, this is (BLEEP) hopeless.
But their luck turns when they break a big gold drought.
Told you, mate.
Unearthing their first monster nuggets of the season.
They're starting to turn up. Big gold is here.
This is like a swimming pool here.
I know, it's winter,
but I can't believe how much rain we're copping.
Oh, you better believe it, mate, look at it.
I can only tell you it's only gonna to get worse.
I know. I know, mate. But this is pretty (BLEEP) bad now.
It's gonna be hard to push anything out,
move the trucks around and what.
Without the bulldozer, I know it's gonna be damn hard.
Yep.
So, you go grab your loader,
I'll get this (indistinct) happening and move.
We can make a start. But I understand, mate.
We need gold.
In the heart of Victoria's historic Golden Triangle,
the Poseidon Crew,
Brent Shannon and brother-in-law Ethan West
are mining the legendary Catto's Paddock.
We're coming in the winter and it's already saturated,
things aren't going so well at the moment.
Not finding much gold.
We need a bulldozer, which we need it more than ever right now.
I'm feeling more pressure than
I've probably haven't felt
for a long time.
Alright, Eth, I'm not gonna load you up fully for this load,
mate, so it's not too heavy on it.
No worries, mate. I'll see what I get.
This machine here,
this is probably about 70 tonnes
as it sits right now.
And to get traction in this mud,
it just slips and slides and carries on.
It just...Yeah, it's a nightmare.
The pair relies on heavy machinery
to excavate ground down to gold bearing bedrock
before trucking the pay dirt
and spreading it into thin pads for detecting.
It only takes one bucket to change everything.
Big nuggets here, huge history of old timers going down one hole
and pulled out 1,000 ounces of nuggets.
I just know deep down inside if we keep digging,
things can turn around really quickly, you know.
Gold is my passion, looking for it is my passion.
And I need to keep finding gold so I can keep doing what I love.
(BLEEP)
Brent, mate, you gotta copy. Come over here now.
Yeah, mate. I'm too close to the edge.
Alright, alright. I'm coming over, mate.
I'm worried about that edge collapsing in and over,
it's pretty fragile ground there on the corner
as you can see there's already stuff that's crumbled over.
The tracks over there, not over here.
What happens when you slide?
Did that give away then?
Just now. It actually is.
Got a bit of a half-formed track there,
but he slipped off the edge.
Yeah.
We don't want the truck end up in the hole.
Alright, Eth, what we're gonna do, mate,
I'm gonna reach into the back of the dump truck, bud,
and then I'm gonna sort of drag the dump truck towards me
and back out, and I'll get you to go forward at the same time
so we can get it up out of there, alright?
Yeah. Sounds good, mate.
The 50-tonne track excavator
is equipped with a 6.5m hydraulic boomer,
capable of supporting well over its own weight.
Yep.
There we go. Rightyo.
Stay on the road, Eth. Yeah.
This is the downside of it all unfortunately working in winter.
But the benefit of the days right now would be that
it's a tract machine.
And we could clear all this clay and sludge off down the hard firm.
It just allows to move around a bit more.
Last week, the 25-tonne bulldozer they used to clear top soil
and spread pay dirt suffered a critical engine failure.
Hey, Brent, you gotta copy, mate.
This is making a knocking sound,
I've just shut it down.
It ain't gonna be a $400 fixer, this is gonna be 40,000.
The damn time is gonna be the bigger killer than the money.
And the notoriously nugget or bust ground left them
with little to add towards
their 100-ounce target.
The big stuff isn't turning up
and I'm scratching my head
because this is renowned
big nugget country and we're getting scraps really.
Catto's ain't going to plan at the moment.
We're not finding the gold I hoped to be here.
And right now, things are just getting tough.
Who wants to be a miner?
(CHUCKLES)
This is gonna be tough going here, I can assure you.
I'm spinning those wheels.
Yeah, hold it there, Eth.
I'm slipping.
I can't even make it up this freaking hell.
It's only a small slope,
we can't even get the dump truck up the slope of the area.
Right now, this is (BLEEP) hopeless.
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
So, I've just gone into town,
you know, I'm supposed to be picking out the conveyor and the hopper,
so we can get our plant up and running,
but, you know, it's not ready.
Saw this scrap here and I thought just stop in have a quick look.
Look, I'm hoping for a miracle, I really am because,
you know, if I don't find something to get this crushing plant up
and running and it's not looking good.
I can't see any way that
we can make season target.
I really don't. It's all turning (BLEEP).
It's gone bad real quick.
This season, the Gold Retrievers Brad and Chris
pumped all their savings
into buying parts from a local company
to build a $75,000 wash plant.
Mate, this will get our 50 ounces, don't worry about that.
They plan to process stockpiles of pay dirt
they believe are rich in fine gold.
On their Devil's Cut lease near Coolgardie.
Oh, (BLEEP).
But mechanical failures...
We got a whole heap of gear here now that we can't use.
..and flash flooding...
Is that the concentrator underwater, is it?
..kept them from running the pay dirt through their new plant.
We haven't even started yet.
It hasn't been a great start
to the season.
What can go wrong did go wrong.
Been a long time
coming for this plant.
We had a lot of setbacks.
We've only got two more pieces of kit and Brad's on his way back
with him, hopper and a conveyor.
That will now complete the circuit.
We're ready to rock and roll.
So, this bulk processing now
is gonna really put us back on the map, I hope.
Hang on a second.
There's the hopper...
and no conveyer.
What's going on?
Hopper's not ready yet, mate.
You serious? Yep. Or the conveyor.
They're saying that it could be another week or two.
That's another two weeks we can't do anything.
Nothing I can do about it, mate, unfortunately.
Now, what are we gonna do? I don't know.
I don't know what we're gonna do. This is gonna send us broke.
Mate, it's certainly looking that way.
We've spent all our money on this gear and we can't run it.
It's not looking good.
But the only thing I can think about is I can handfeed this.
Just do some sampling.
Might just take advantage of this time
and sample a heap of different areas and I'll do that.
I don't care. We gotta do something.
That's a lot of hard work. I'll do what I've gotta do.
That's fine. That's fine.
I'll have to get back on the detector.
Well, we might have to, mate, we gotta do something, so...
We need a pay day, mate. Alright. Cool, man.
Let's do that. Alright.
It seems to be every plan we make fails.
Yeah.
Look, I'm really disappointed, you know, if we had had the hopper,
it would've have made life a lot easier.
We would have had the hopper here and then Chris
could have brought the loader in fed the hopper
and it would've went straight into the hammer mill.
And then obviously out of the hammer mill,
we would've had a conveyor that feeds
it into the end of the ball mill here.
I'm just gonna have to handfeed it for now.
Look, it's gonna slow us right down but look,
it's an important part of sampling.
So, I'm happy to do it. We've got plenty of dirt here.
So, we really need to go through that
and see which one's got fine gold in it.
Look, it's a great opportunity to get that done,
you know, make good of a bad situation.
So, at this stage, we're both out of our savings.
Now that the crushing plant's not fully operational,
we've got to hit a pay day.
Try and find some more gold nuggets.
That's gotta put money back in the bag.
We've got bills to pay and family to make proud of us.
So, we can't go back to Perth without any goal, as simple as that.
00:11:01.120 -- 00:11:03.240 I think we just got a slow week.
I can't see any damage.
Yeah, it's holding there.
I think we're gonna be alright. Yeah.
Hope so. Oh, here's Steve.
Hey.
Hey, Steve. Hey.
Hey, mate. How you going?
Good. How are you? Yeah, good, good.
What's going on here? Just a slight leak, so...
What are you up to? Not much.
Heading home, mate. Been happy to win?
I've been getting a few little bits, but then the other day,
I found this one.
Oh, what? No way, mate.
That is epic. Holy crap.
Wow, what a piece of gold. Yes, it's alright, eh?
Look at that! How much does that weigh?
Just 15 ounces.
I know, how hard you work, mate.
You deserve every bit of that. I couldn't believe it.
Might have been a few tears. Yeah, mate.
Man, that's a 40-grand payday. Yeah.
Well done. Yeah.
No, mate, it's gonna make a really big difference to me and the kids.
Wow. Yeah. Oh, congratulations.
We haven't been getting one of them like that, mate.
But hey, listen, you guys have done few favours for me.
Would you like to know where I got it?
Oh, mate. I can show you.
Yeah.
If you're happy to guide us to an area,
we'll take it at the moment.
We're sort of struggling. Yeah.
Just grab your phone out.
I'll show you on the map where I got it.
Legend. Thanks, mate. That's alright.
So, if you just head down this track here...
The tip from fellow prospector Steve sends Andrew Leahy
and Jacqui Buzetti deep into the isolated Palmer River
at the top end of Australia to hunt for big gold.
One nugget like that could change our entire season.
Oh, so good. Yeah.
Look, I've just invested everything into this season.
So, yeah, we really do need that big gold to pay off because,
you know,
I'm not going back (indistinct),
I'm not going back to do all that again.
I mean, I've done the same.
I've walked away from my entire
life and committed
to being here 100%.
So, if we don't get the payoff from it, yeah,
we got nothing to fall back on.
It's pretty risky, but we've gotta give it a shot.
It's literally gold or go bust.
What the hell!
Last week...
Pigs or a dingo or something's been in the can.
And they got all our food. No food left at all.
Oh, I know, what that is. Yeah.
Another broken coil. They're 500 bucks a go.
..a series of setbacks put Jacqui and Andy's costly Palmer River
expedition under more pressure...
Damn it! Yes.
(LAUGHS)
..before Jacqui found her first gold of the season.
Finally, the drought is over. Check these out.
Which became a flood
and put the duo back in the black.
We actually need to be
hitting these constantly.
We're on the right track.
We just gotta keep doing what we're doing.
Just around this bend. Oh, yeah, look.
There it is. That's the road.
Yeah.
This will take us straight to that area Steve was talking about.
Wow.
This looks like a good place to start.
I reckon you're right. Alright.
Let's get some gold.
I'm excited to get one of those big nugs.
Oh, yes. Alright.
Good luck, get some. Yeah.
Hopefully, that's the plan. This grass is the killer.
That's where the snakes like to hang out where all the food is.
So, we just got to keep our eyes out here.
We're way too remote to get done up by a taipan.
The coastal taipan is the third most venomous snake in the world,
boasting a neurotoxin that can induce seizures, paralysis,
and even death.
With the nearest medical centre over 2.5 hours away,
for Jacqui and Andrew, a taipan bite could prove fatal.
Now, this big inside bend here is exactly
what prospectors want to see.
That's just the best spot for gold.
Gold carried downstream became trapped in the bends
where the water naturally slows
the heavy gold material eventually
settling in the gravel layer
that sits on bedrock.
This looks like good ground. I'm kicking off here.
Really need to start getting some decent gold in.
And this 50-ounce target we've set, it's a big ask.
Even though we've come to a super-rich area,
there is no guarantee we're walking out here with any gold.
But that's the name of the game.
Everything we do is a gamble.
Let's just hope this one pays off.
I have always had a love for gold and treasure hunting.
When I was a kid, I used to go out with my dad.
But then I actually was working in a beauty salon.
So, I'd be there in the air-conditioning
and definitely not out here sweating in the gold fields,
but I couldn't be happier.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
It's not the worst sound.
Could be junk, could be gold.
I wish I could keep a jackhammer in my backpack.
People think it's easy to find gold.
I will tell you right now, first hole I've dug for the day
and I'm already sweating.
This is crazy.
I guess that's what gold does to you, hey.
Alright. That's out.
Oh, get out.
That's a nice chunk of gold there.
I'd say about 4g or 5g on that, well, be worth around $300.
Yeah, I've just made day's wages
in my first nugget find for the week,
so pretty stoked with that.
Let Andy know that we're on and see how he's gone.
Hey, Andy, you got a copy?
Andy, you got a copy?
Sometimes he just takes a couple of seconds.
Hopefully he's digging up gold too.
Andy, got a copy?
I've been trying to radio Andy now and it's been probably
a good 15 minutes and I haven't heard anything back.
This isn't right.
He could have had a fall.
It could be a snake bite.
Andy, you on channel?
You can't assume that someone's OK 'cause that's when people
get lost or go missing or something happens.
Andy!
Eugh!
Getting it up just finally.
Hurry up, please. Jesus.
In Victoria, the Poseidon Crew are desperate
to pull gold from their rain-soaked licenced Catto's paddock.
But with their 25-tonne dozer dead in the water,
they're struggling.
I think there's a bit of pressure on Brent.
He feels the need that... we still need gold to come in.
Man, we really do.
The biggest frustration point
is it's hard to find a bulldozer right now.
There's actually one next door.
I just can't get hold of them and just to work out a deal.
We need it and it's coming to the worst time
of the year not to have it.
So, what do we do?
Cowboys arrived.
The slippery conditions
are costing the team valuable detecting time.
So, Brent's wife Karlie
has brought their son Cayden in to help.
Hello. Hey, darling.
Hey, what's going?
Your school holidays are on now.
I know, you wanted to get out here.
So, I don't think you have to take much convincing.
I'd love to just keep talking,
but I think we better get back to it.
Alright, thanks, girls.
Alright. See you guys. Good luck.
Well, it's good. We got Cayden in here right now.
You can stay on the detector.
I'll get back in the excavator digging.
Get Ethan on the dump truck and the loader.
And hopefully, we can start really getting through some ground.
I'm near ten now.
15, going on 16.
I still got my heart set on
coming out here.
Despite Dad's attempts to keep me to finish school
and get a better job,
but this is where I wanna be.
I love being out here helping the boys.
Hop through over hunt.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
That's a good sound, that is.
If this is gonna be a bit of gold, it's gonna be really exciting.
(LAUGHS) My blood's pumping with this one.
Yay!
There we go.
A nice flat bit there.
(LAUGHS)
It's gotta be around what, 18, 20 grams, 22 grams.
There's gold in this ground! Yeah.
You get so excited, you get your blood pumping,
your heart racing.
It's a feeling you can't really describe.
(PHONE RINGS)
How you going there, Jordan?
Good. We've arrived.
Oh, you up here, are you?
We are. Oh, beauty.
Oh, mate, come across, mate,
and we'll have a look at that bulldozer.
No worries.
Right now, I'm just gonna head over next door
and hopefully finalise a deal on the bulldozer over
there if we can get that today.
God.
That'll be really helpful.
And it will speed things up probably double, triple
what we're doing right now.
I just need it to happen sooner rather than later.
00:21:31.200 -- 00:21:32.640 Andy, you got a copy?
It's hot out here.
I've been walking around for an hour looking for him.
What if he's been bitten by a snake?
What if he's fallen into a mineshaft?
What if he's collapsed?
And I've done nothing to help.
Jacqui has lost contact with partner Andrew
in the remote wilderness of far north Queensland.
Hey, is that you?
Mate!
Couldn't get you on the radio.
I've been trying to hit you on the radio as well,
I couldn't get you.
Yeah, I'm back in the car. So, you alright?
Yeah. I'm OK.
I was just worried you weren't alright.
It freaked me out.
(SIGHS)
What happened to the radios?
I don't know. I was trying to hit you for ages.
Yeah. Same.
Might have been this big hill between us, eh?
Yeah, I guess so.
I don't know. That's a bit of a concern.
The duo's radios transmit long distances
using ultra-high frequencies,
but rugged terrain and dense land masses
can block the signal.
So, how'd you go aside from making me
walk all over the countryside?
I got one bit of junk the whole time.
Ooh.
I tried to ring you, say we're on the gold.
Yeah, yeah.
And you just weren't there.
Where were you, mate?
Yeah, so I found that nugget just over here.
It was a sigh of relief there, but I was a bit frustrated too
because I'd spent all that time walking and left that area
where I'd found gold.
We just wasted a lot of time.
Yeah, right. So, in this area.
Yeah. Oh, it's good-looking ground.
Alright. I'm gonna go and get some.
Good luck. I'm gonna try get some more.
My plan is to try up along the hills and the ridges.
Yeah, we're chasing a 50-ounce target this year,
and it's a massive job.
So, we're really hopeful this spot's gonna pay off.
(DETECTOR WAILING) Yeah.
There's a target here,
which is pretty close to where I got that big one.
It's really tough ground to work here.
Of course, nothing's easy in the Palmer.
Alright.
So, it's about there.
So, I'll just grab the scoop.
Should be around here somewhere.
First scoop.
Oh.
Yes!
That's wicked.
How good is that.
Nice chunky piece of gold.
I'd say probably around 300 bucks' worth of gold there.
Could be about 4g.
(DETECTOR WAILING) Wow, that's loud.
Look at that sitting right here.
That's a great nug.
Whoo!
That's 10g easy, if not more.
Yeah, it's probably close to $1,000 worth of gold there.
Yeah, that's why we do this game.
It's the rush.
You know, what other job gives you a rush like that?
That's a great nugget.
Days like these,
you wouldn't bring anything else but a prospector.
Mate, in all honesty,
I'm thinking of cancelling the hopper.
I don't think we need one.
I've just built one. You have?
And it saved us a lot of money.
We don't have any money, mate.
That's why we're using a bucket.
Ready?
You wanna see the magic?
Near Coolgardie, gold retrievers Brad and Chris
have engineered a temporary bush fix hopper
to ensure no gold is lost as they hand-shovel the pay dirt
into the crusher.
It's actually working. It works a treat, mate.
Alright.
Yeah, mate!
He's impressed, he's impressed.
So, these fine gold sampling that Brad's doing at the moment,
it's gonna be a great indication if we can find some good tails
in the pan at the end of it, but it's not paying the bills.
Look, we've got a 50-ounce target this year and at this stage,
we are nowhere near on track.
G'day, Ronnie. G'day, Chris.
How are you, mate? I'm very well. Yourself?
Always good, mate.
Mate, it's good to see you here.
Thanks a lot, mate. What's been your problem?
Well, the crushing plant's not fully operational yet.
So, we'll get you over and if you don't mind,
put you on the loader
and need to start laying out some material for us.
We're still trying to see if we can find some nuggets.
No worries, mate. Glad to help out.
Yeah. Alright.
Let's get some gold
and we'll get into it, eh?
Yep. Alright, done.
Thanks again.
We called on a mate, Ronnie.
We need more gold in the bank,
so every little bit of help that we can get, we're accepting.
Being out here in the remote gold fields,
you've got to really rely on good neighbours.
People drop everything to give you a hand
and they don't expect anything in return.
I've got all the crushed dirt, so now,
what I'm gonna do is run this through the ball mill
to crash it down and even further.
150 steel balls grind the material
before it passes through the concentrator,
which traps the gold.
So I got through about ten of these,
that will work out about 0.5 tonne.
So, if I double the product that we get out of this,
that'll give us an amount of grams per tonne.
So, we're probably looking at around 3g to 5g that
we really ideally want.
You know, the result at the end could change our lives.
A fully operational wet plant
can process up to 2 tonnes of pay dirt
every hour if rich and fine gold,
the Gold Retrievers could mate up to $8,000 a day.
That's 0.5 tonne through,
so I'll shut it down and see what we got.
Yeah, look, this is vitally important,
you know, that we do it right out of this because,
you know, we've invested all our money into this
and this is what I love doing and this is what I really wanna do.
But it'd actually kill me to fail.
This is what's left of 0.5 tonne.
If there's no gold in that, then we're (BLEEP) broke.
Anyway, only one way to find out, I'll pan this off
and we'll see what's in it.
Couple of little specks of gold and that's it.
Little piece there, little piece there,
another little piece in there.
Probably wouldn't even register on the scale, to be honest with you.
But I mean, look, that's only the first amount,
but yeah, it's pretty disappointing.
I was really hoping for a lot more than that.
These are sort of things that can send people broke unfortunately.
I'm hoping that things can pick up, but if they don't,
I got a family at home, I need to make a tough decision.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
(DETECTOR WAILING) Here we go.
This one's gold as well.
We can pretty well call this a patch.
Deep in the Palmer River gold fields of Northern Queensland,
Jacqui and Andrew have hit a rich area of gold...
(LAUGHS)
Another nice chunky specimen.
..near where their friend Steve found a massive 15-ounce nugget.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's another one.
You beauty. This is a patch for sure.
Here's another 2g or 3g of gold in the jar.
Prospecting at its best.
The river of gold, eh.
Let's have a listen.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
This could be the giant nugget we're looking for.
Andy, I've got a target that just keeps getting louder up here, mate.
Well, that sounds interesting. How deep are you?
Getting down probably around 200mil
and it's just screaming at me now, I'm getting a bit excited.
I might come up and have a look.
Steve's big nuggets got us all excited.
Just to unearth a monstrous nugget would just be
the most amazing feeling. Oh.
Hey. (DETECTOR WAILING)
Listen to that.
That sounds alright.
This could me the big nug we've been hoping for.
If this is a giant nugget though, it's mine, just remember that.
Oh, yeah. I know.
I'll buy you a coffee, yeah? And cook me dinner.
Shall we have a listen?
Hit this here.
Alright, have another listen. (DETECTOR WAILING)
Oh. Oh.
Watch out. It'll make us rich.
(LAUGHS) Oh, straight...
Half a horseshoe.
You gotta be kidding me. Yeah.
Well, the old timers used to ride their horses along these ridges,
that were their highways, so...
That sucks. Yeah.
That really does suck. Oh.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
That's the other half of horseshoe.
Funny. There's our horseshoe.
May as well clean up the junk while we're here.
Another half of horseshoe, where are you?
That's not a horseshoe.
Oh, my god! Get out.
And that's a good nug, mate. Oh!
Holy crap.
What a lucky horseshoe.
How's that for a specimen!
You think there's gotta be 0.5 an ounce of gold in there.
That's awesome. Love that.
I'm glad we went for the second half of the horseshoe.
I'm glad you did too 'cause I would have walked away.
Hiding right under the horseshoe, eh.
The horseshoe patch. Alright, I'm back to it.
You still owe me dinner. (LAUGHS)
Well done, mate.
There you go, you always check your holes in this game,
you never know when there's something still down in there.
Jacqui just proved that with a good 0.5 an ounce of gold.
What a champ.
00:32:21.120 -- 00:32:22.560 (COW MOOS)
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
I don't know where Brent pulls his rabbit from,
he really does.
He's come across the paddock with a bulldozer
and I couldn't believe it quite frankly.
Alright, aye? A new bulldozer.
Hire or buy? We bought it, mate.
Beautiful. It's a (CROSS TALKING) machine.
Yeah, it'll do the job, mate. I'm excited.
Let's make it happen.
Alright, what Brent's gonna do is he's gonna push
all this top layer of mud off.
That way we can get the dump truck in there nice and easy.
At the Catto's paddock lease in Victoria,
a second-hand bulldozer has set the Poseidon Crew back $90,000.
But now they can clear the slippery clay that has slowed them down.
I'm a lot more happier than I was a few days ago.
We've got a bulldozer.
We're making inroads. Stuff's happening.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
Eth, look at this.
If that's gold, it's not a bad bit.
Well, the one target here, Eth. Radio your old man.
Let him know. Dad.
Yeah, bud.
I've got a couple targets in one spot.
Listen to this one.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
Alright. Alright. Alright, I'm coming over, mate.
I know you shouldn't get too excited
'cause you always get the let down if it isn't gold,
but I can't help it.
Come on, Dad.
Give us a listen. What have you got?
Listen, man.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
That sounds pretty good.
I can tell you it ain't gonna be a couple of grams.
Would you say you get more and more target?
Have a listen.
(DETECTOR WAILING) Another one.
What happened, Eth,
the (indistinct) chunk is dumped there on the pad.
Yeah. Out of a bucket.
When the bulldozer comes through, it pushes the whole run.
And the gold just sort of breaks up out of clumps
and the clump's probably broken up right here.
This is what it's all about, mate.
(DETECTOR WAILING)
Check with my foot first.
(LAUGHS) Here it is! I can see it.
(LAUGHS)
Well done! There we go.
Not a bad bit. That's a good one.
There you go, Eth. I told you it's a nugget, mate.
That's a good little piece, mate. That's the best chunk.
I still got a few more targets to hear.
I know, listen, yeah, I know that.
Have a listen.
Take the next biggest one, Cayden.
(DETECTOR WAILING) Alright. Let's dig this one.
Alright, have a listen, Cayd. Alright, got it out.
Now, this is one... There it is.
Hey! Nice.
Yay! That's another nice bit.
Have a look at that. Looks like a lamb leg.
I'll tell you what it is.
Call whatever you want, it's money.
It's money, yeah. (LAUGHTER)
We better keep moving before the weather turns up again.
Cayden just found some ripple little pieces.
Nice little 4, 4.5, 5-ounce bit.
I can't wipe this smile off my face.
History shows this area got runs of gold.
Nearly one-third of all Victoria's large nuggets
have been found in this paddock and the joining.
Hey, Brent. You gotta copy, mate? Yeah, bud.
I've got a target up here.
I can see it physically on the surface, mate.
I haven't dug it out, but I'll let you do the honours, mate.
This is a decent piece. How big is it? How big is it?
Just come up here and look, mate. Whoo-hoo!
I've had a lot of riding on me this season whether
I stay, come, go, whatever.
But these bits here, we can continue these bits.
This is gonna secure my future out here.
(DETECTOR WAILING) Oh, my god.
Ahh! Told you!
Cayden, come up here, mate. I'm coming.
Look at that, man. Have a look, man.
Look at that. Have a look at that.
Have a look at this. I actually can dig with my hands.
Look at that. Hey.
Let's grab all of it. That's gold!
I told you, mate. Hey.
Hey, hey, hey, hold this. (LAUGHS)
That's a chunk, man. That is a chunk.
That's gold, buddy. That is gold.
That is what I'm talking about. What's that?
It has to be 15 ounces or something like that.
The nugget could be worth over $40,000.
That's a chunk. Hold that, Cayden.
Whoa!
I was starting to doubt it.
I am so glad you turned up to the party.
And now our first bit of decent Catto's paddock gold.
Beautiful. It's starting to turn up.
Big gold is here.
So, we got pans and gold.
Chuck it in. Alright.
So, we're basically just separating
the rock and the gold now.
Here it goes.
Ooh.
Oh, it's crushing.
On the Palmer River, Jacqui and Andrew are eager to find out
the gold content of the rocks they gathered while detecting.
So, the dolly pot's quite an old bit of technology.
Now, this is the same way the old timers would've crushed
their gold out here as well.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm enjoying this.
(LAUGHTER)
You just basically smack it up
until the quartz and the gold separate
and then you can pan off the gold of course and see what you got.
Oh, look at that. That's just a big chunk of gold.
And there's another smaller chunk as well.
That's solid. That is.
Now, you've crushed all the rock out of it.
That's just gold now.
Plus all these bits in here too,
you know, that dust had to be full of fine gold.
Yeah. Fine gold all through that.
Time to find out how we went.
I wanna know what was, in all those specimens we crushed.
Yeah, me too.
There's the big one.
That's the one that was under the horseshoe.
Wow. Nearly 0.5 an ounce.
0.5 an ounce. Yeah!
That's awesome. Alright. Here we go.
1.5. Wow, that's awesome.
All from the crushing. That's way more than I thought.
I'm actually really happy with that.
That's, you know, 4 grand,
4.5 grand's worth of gold right there.
Yeah, true.
Now, this is all the rest of the stuff we found
in the other patch and around that area.
Oh, it's gone up. It's gone up.
3.6 ounces. Whoo!
Nice. That's a good weighing.
Yeah. That's another $9,000 in the kitty.
When you put it into numbers
like that, it's, yeah, amazing.
I shouldn't be disappointed with weighing like that.
It really is good.
But it's...
We need more.
We need to punch more weight if we're gonna find 50 ounces.
But having that 50-ounce target
to work towards is just gonna keep driving us.
And if we set a smaller target,
we'd be happy and look at that and feel relaxed right now.
We need something to work towards
and it drives us to really push for that big gold.
So, whilst this is great, we can still do better.
Let's go. Another weighing done.
I think, you just like smashing the rocks.
I did enjoy smashing it up.
Absolutely nothing.
That's about 3-tonne of handfed through now
and seen pretty much nothing.
I'm done. I'm out of here.
Outside of Coolgardie,
Gold Retrievers Brad and Chris are hoping the 0.5 tonne bulk test
will turn their season around.
How's that looking? This is the last pan, mate.
And there's absolutely nothing in it.
So, it's not looking good. No.
Mate, we were finding fine gold last season
and I don't understand where it's gone.
Yeah, that's the whole reason we bought all this gear.
Are we using the gear right? Well, I don't know.
I really don't know what the answer is.
Whether it's the ground or the gear.
It's not set up properly, I don't know.
Mate, we got a lot of money invested in this.
So, if this gear doesn't find us gold,
then the whole thing was a waste of time.
Yeah.
I don't know where we go from here,
mate, but things aren't working.
We're never gonna hit our 50-ounce target...
No. ..with results like that.
So, something's gotta change whether it be
find some new ground or we work out what we're doing wrong here.
Yeah.
Or change it up altogether, I don't know.
Alright.
Yeah, we need to make some decisions, I think.
Absolutely.
As to where to go next.
Alright.
Alright, boys.
Mate, I am just so relieved.
We're actually starting to get not only pieces,
we're starting to get chunks here.
After months of disappointment,
the Poseidon Crew are hoping their luck has turned.
One of these days, we're gonna get a monster,
mate, like you would not believe.
We're not wasting our time.
It's not a dream, it will happen, I just don't know when,
but you know what, we're probably not away
from something special now, you know.
I'm looking forward to this. Alright.
Now, let's see what we got here. Ready?
Here's all the smalls.
Wow, there's some good chunks amongst it.
I was gonna say that's chunky small gold, Brent.
That's very chunky. What do we got?
It comes to roughly nearly 29 ounces, mate.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
That's your chunk.
That's a ripper.
Not a bad little bit. And Ethan's chunk.
Right.
That one brings it up just over 33. That's about just over four ounces.
That's a good, that's not a bad one.
And the beauty, mate.
That one brings it to...46.5 ounces, mate.
That's good going.
That's nearly $120,000 worth
of gold, like that.
I know, mate. I know.
Well, here we go, boys.
As this rain is starting to roll in, I tell you what, Eth,
if it rains like they said it's gonna rain over
the next day or two, we might be buggered here, Eth.
Well, that's my concern now, mate.
Right when we're starting to get on the good gold,
we might be rained out for at least maybe a month or two.
There's always other options, mate.
We can always go back out the bush,
but we're gonna keep going here until we can't.
Done. Alright. Let's go.
Well done, Cayden. Good job, mate.
(THUNDER CRASHES)
(UP-TEMPO MUSIC)
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv