MATT DICKSON (NARRATES): This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
The Gold Devils are forced
to move their multi-million dollar mining operation
in a search for richer ground.
The gold is running out at this lease
so, it's time to pack up and find the gold elsewhere.
Aw, there's a lot of pressure.
It's thousands of dollars an hour.
This is nerve wracking.
Just what we need.
Let's go and dig some gold. Let's go dig some gold.
Whoo-hoo!
In the legendary gold fields of Victoria,
a new team of prospectors...
Let's go chase some real gold.
..break ground on a life changing mining project...
This is our first day, first hole.
..but equipment failure threatens to shut them down
before they can get started.
We don't need this at the moment.
It could be expensive.
It feels so good to be back.
Jacqui and Andrew
return to Australia's wildest gold hunting ground,
Queensland's Palmer River.
It's only the hardcore adventurers
who want to come in and work this ground.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on!
But their mission to reach new ground
leaves them stranded.
Hang on.
I don't think we'll make it.
We're not getting through that mud.
It's too risky.
And for one team the gamble pays off big
with a massive three kilogram haul of gold!
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
You ready? Yeah, give it to her.
Make sure you're out of the road.
Do you want me to just give it a good rip
and just see what happens?
Alright.
Alright, well, that will pretty much do for this one then.
So, we realised the gold is running out at this lease
and we have 1,000 ounce target
this season so we can't afford
to waste time on ground
that won't deliver.
So, it's time to pack up and find the gold elsewhere.
Moving site, it's not cheap.
There's just so many things to get done,
so many moving parts.
We've got every man and his dog here.
Cranes, trucks,
we've got the works
and it's costing us $7,000 an hour,
every hour they're on site.
Getting everything out of here and on the trucks
it's only half of the job.
Got to get it off at the other end and then set it all up.
In the arid Goldfields of Western Australia,
at the Meldorado lease, the Gold Devils, Paul Mackie,
Melanie Wood and Alex Stead
are battling to load and move over 150 tonnes of equipment
and heavy machinery.
So, at the moment we're pulling apart the sluice.
We need to send that back to
the Phoenix Project on the other lease.
Got a fair bit of stockpile dirt to run through it.
Problem is it's about six hours away
west and yeah,
we gotta get it there safely,
otherwise we won't be able to use any of it.
We've got a lot of equipment to move and if anything goes wrong
and breaks at this point we're out of the season
before we've even started.
The trucks will line up pretty quickly
and that's the main container.
That's got the biggest crushing equipment in it.
There's 100 grands worth of crushing equipment in that.
We can't afford anything to happen to that.
That didn't sound healthy.
Just what we need.
That's what I didn't want to happen.
Hey, Paul. Hey, Mel.
How you going? Alex.
Yeah, good.
Last week, team leaders Paul and Mel,
along with Mel's partner Alex,
joined forces to create a new mining venture
with $2 million worth of equipment,
ten leases and decades of experience hunting for big gold.
All in all we're gonna make a pretty good team.
They set their sights
on a massive 1,000- ounce season target.
We could both walk away with a million dollar profit each.
Awesome.
But their main operation, Meldorado,
delivered a meagre return.
5.7.
It's still ten grand but it's not what we need.
Forcing the team to relocate to the Phoenix Project,
gambling on its cyanide gold retrieving set up
and stockpile of pay dirt
to get their season back on track.
That's what I didn't want to happen.
It's over 35 tonnes in that one container.
The weakest point on the inside's just bending in.
It's going to bend up more than what it is already.
I'd say just go for it, lift it. Just get it up.
Put some air on it.
Oh, god, it's nerve wracking.
Here we go. It's up.
Just had to put some air on it.
There's over 100 grand of just equipment
in that one container.
Even dropping that thing a foot would smash it.
Come on. Down you go.
It's down.
It's not over yet. Yeah. This is halfway.
It's got the transport and anything could go wrong.
Oh, there's a lot of pressure.
You know, we've got three road
trains sitting here idle and a big crane
as well, and it's thousands of dollars an hour.
Oh, lift from both sides, it's probably easier.
Yeah, so we've almost loaded everything up
and I'm about to hit the road.
Most things have gone smoothly but we're not really going to be
able to tell until we get to the other side.
All Mel's seeing at the moment is the dollar signs rolling up
incredibly quickly
but we've got damage already and we're halfway through
so, let's hope this all makes it in one piece.
We are almost about to hit the road and do the big convoy.
Righto, pulling out.
We need to get everything up there as quick as we can.
The longer we're not processing, the longer we're not making money.
Hello.
Hey, Murray, how are ya?
You've got some good news, have ya?
Unreal, mate, unreal.
Mate, this is awesome news.
I'm just going to go and pick up Bibbi
and I'll meet you down the lease.
Let's get into it eh.
Just got the phone call from Murray.
We've got all our licences
and approvals so I'm just going to go and pick up Bibbi
and give her the good news
and meet Murray down on the lease.
We can finally start.
Hey, babe! Hi.
You won't believe it, honey. What?
Just had a phone call from Murray.
We've been approved.
Oh! Are you excited?
Yeah, I'm excited. Well done.
Congratulations!
Outside Talbot, in Victoria's legendary Golden Triangle,
Vince Malacria and partner Bibbi Jerali...
Jump in there, darl.
..are about to realise their dream
of mining their 12-acre property.
Oh, wow, honey. Are you excited?
I'm so excited.
Let's go dig some dirt.
It's taken a long time, a lot of money,
blood, sweat and tears.
Let's go and dig some gold. Let's go and dig some gold.
Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!
Rookie miners, Vince and Bibbi
have been together 18 years
but Vince's work managing remote solar farms
forced the couple to spend the majority of their lives apart.
To build a new life together
the pair made the radical decision
to quit their jobs and take up gold mining.
Hello, hello. Hello.
Hello, partners. How are you?
Very well. How are you?
Not too bad. How are you, buddy?
Good. How are you, Bibbi?
Good.
So, you're all fired up and ready to have a crack at it?
Oh, mate.
Vince and Bibbi's mentor, mining veteran Murray Cox,
has been mining the Talbot Goldfields
for over 30 years.
In the past decade he's pulled hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of gold from the neighbouring lease.
So, you want to go down and we can see if we can work out
exactly where this lead is.
Yeah, you're going to use
those divining rods and have a go are you?
Yeah, that's for sure, mate.
Yeah. Are you ready? Come on.
Fantastic, let's do it.
So, I'd like to mark out the lead itself
and then that's the main area we are going to strip today.
OK. Sounds good.
Murray uses the rods to help him locate leads,
hidden ancient rivers
that once flowed through this area carrying gold.
Over millions of years gold nuggets
became trapped in the river bed,
along with other heavy metals
like ironstone,
hematite and magnetite.
Murray believes he can pick up
the magnetic signals
from heavy metals buried
in these channels,
giving the team a clear indication of where to dig.
With the divining, it's told me the width of our lead,
it's told me the depth of the lead.
Really now all you can do is just open it up and hope.
And if I'm wrong you can kick me in the ass later.
(LAUGHTER)
I'll go and get the dozer. Yep, no worries.
Sounds good. And start stripping some top soil.
Yeah, right. Alright.
It's a plan. It's a plan.
Let's do it. OK.
The team's lease
is just a few kilometres from Clunes,
the site of Victoria's first gold strike,
a find that led to one of the world's greatest gold rushes.
Today, the trio have the advantage of powerful, modern machines.
We are here and we're ready to go.
Fire up these machines and start stripping some topsoil
and see if we can make some money today.
This season we've set a target of 40 ounces.
The gold split up always goes 50-50.
I get 50 and Bibbi and Vince get 50.
Murray's bulldozer will clear the topsoil
before their 25 tonne excavator digs 4 metres down
to the ancient riverbed,
where the team hopes they'll find nugget rich pay gravel.
It's our first day.
Our first hole.
I'm a bit nervous about it.
I'd like to see some gold today.
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
Whoo, that sounds good, mate.
What's going on? I'm not listening to your detecting.
What's going on, Murray? You hear that, babe?
Yeah. I love it.
I love it when it's coming out of the ground like this.
Yep.
Flippin' hell. It's hard.
It's out, mate.
Wow! Oh, my god.
00:11:01.960 -- 00:11:03.320 We're on the road. Finally.
It took six hours getting these trucks out
the driveway and on the road.
Leaving Meldorado. Onto bigger and better things.
Well, do you know what? I'm excited for a new adventure.
The gold's running out so we've got to move all the gear
and make those decisions on the fly and just got to chase that gold.
The Gold Devils' convoy is making a four-hour trip
in 40 degree heat across the Western Australian desert
to their new home, the Phoenix Project,
carrying over 150 tonnes of critical mining equipment.
We've got three vehicles, two car trailers,
three road trains and the crane.
Every single hour is costing us 7 grand.
Pretty much here.
It was a long and expensive but we're here now and I'm rapt.
It's a relief, that's for sure.
Seeing as everything's here and offloaded,
I'll check over all the machinery, make sure there's no major damage,
see what we need to do just to put this right
before we glue it all together.
Yeah, the leach is done.
OK.
So, I'm dumping the carbon at the moment.
I want to get that loaded up onto the truck and get it out of here,
get it stripped so we can actually pay for the massive invoice
that's coming from moving all this gear.
Right, let's get it done. Right.
Just a few metres from the offload
is a heap leach that Paul filled with 1,500 tonnes of pay dirt
over two months ago.
I guess the easiest way to explain
a leaching set up is you've got a dam,
inside that dam it's full of dirt,
the gold ore that you want to leach out.
The cyanide solution basically turns that gold into liquid.
You pump that liquid from the dam
into a carbon column from the bottom upwards,
the gold's extracted from that liquid solution
and sticks itself to the carbon
and that's pretty much where we're at this stage right now.
The tanks contain
over 2,000 kilos of activated carbon.
After being chemically treated,
the carbon becomes incredibly porous.
When the cyanide solution
carries the gold leached from the pay dirt
through the tanks, the gold molecules bond to the larger,
porous carbon particles, trapping the gold in the tanks.
It's been leaching for nearly a couple of months.
We're ready to drop the carbon,
get that carbon into the stripping plant,
get them to extract the gold out of the carbon.
Doesn't look like much but to me that's beautiful.
Knowing that there's all gold in that carbon,
which we desperately need right now anyway to cover all the costs.
Liquid gold.
Another year on the Palmer. I can't wait.
After last year and all that gold
we got and all the adventures we had.
It feels so good to be back.
And this is without a doubt
the most dangerous goldfield in Australia.
But that's why I like it. It's the adventure.
It's the challenge.
Have a look. There it is, right in front of us.
Our playground.
These are the hills that we are going to be searching
and walking and sweating through.
I can't wait. I can't wait to get in amongst it.
In Far North Queensland, prospectors Jacqui Buzetti
and Andrew Leahy are making a return expedition to the harsh,
tropical depths of The Palmer River.
Well, here we are at Cannibal Creek.
I think this is some of the last unsearched ground
in the whole area.
That's awesome.
We're gonna have to be pretty careful here.
It's a dangerous gold field.
But there's big gold.
Let's get into it.
Last season...
Wahh!
..Jacqui and Andrew travelled North...
You alright, mate? It's hot.
I'm feeling it already.
..to explore Australia's wildest goldfield.
Oh, look at that. Oh, my god!
The Palmer River.
Oh.
They overcame life-threatening heat
to make the biggest gold find of their careers...
Oh, Jacqui! Check that out!
Oh, my god!
That is the biggest nugget I have ever found.
..smashing their season target.
5.1. We did it, mate.
(LAUGHS) Yes! Yes! We busted 30.
The river gold's been good to us.
Alright, well, what's the plan of attack, do you reckon?
I'm really interested in getting down to Stonyville
now that we are up at Cannibal Creek.
The history down there is really awesome.
They had a town there
and there is haul road tracks all through this satellite imagery.
Yeah, well, those haul roads,
they generally led to gold and we can use 'em.
We can still use those roads to drive through.
Yep. We've got a plan.
Let's head down to Stonyville. Let's do it.
Alright. Everything we need. Let's go.
Well, now we need to get down
to business 'cause 50 ounce target,
that's a lot of gold, mate.
It's going to go a long way
for setting us up for the future.
Stonyville is a punishing three-hour drive away.
The abandoned 19th century mining settlement,
is surrounded by a series of gullies with extraordinary gold potential.
Jacqui and Andrew's plan is to use unmaintained haul roads
built by mining companies in the 1980s
to reach these target areas.
Yeah, during the '80s
they didn't work the ground properly.
They just smashed in,
smashed those haul roads in,
ripped out all the easy to get gravels
and went to the next creek, you know.
So... Yeah.
..that does leave us some gold behind.
And they didn't have the detectors
we are using today
so, I think we've got
a real good chance of hitting some nice gold out in those areas.
Cut through this creek.
I think we can get onto a haul road and it will be a bit
of a shortcut for us.
Save us a lot of time if we can.
So far, so good.
Hang on.
It's completely filled with water.
Have a bit of a look eh.
Do you reckon we can get through?
We're not getting through that, mate.
I love it.
I love it when it's coming out
of the ground like this.
She's out, mate. It's out?
Yeah. I can see it in the edge there.
Throw it up here.
Good on you, mate. Ooh!
Look at that. It's not very big but it's our first bit.
Unreal. (INAUDIBLE).
It's beautiful. Look at it.
How many grams do you reckon?
Oh, probably only two, mate, but it doesn't matter.
That's right. I'm happy. It's beautiful.
It's our first bit. Oh, yes!
Congratulations, Bibbi. Yeah.
In Victoria's Golden Triangle, Vince, Bibbi and Murray
have made their first find just hours
after breaking ground on their new lease.
Two grams is a good start
you know, so hopefully, there's a big one in here somewhere
and release a bit of the pressure off me, so.
No going back to work.
The promising discovery is only 200 metres
from one of veteran miner Murrays old leases.
Pass that bush line there,
we've got so much gold
but one of the things that
is really exciting to me
is the fact that a lot of it was crystal gold.
Formed when crystals grow rapidly in a gold rich vein,
crystalline or crystal gold nuggets are the rarest form of gold.
Crystal gold's value isn't based on weight
but rather on the uniqueness
of its shape and configuration.
At auction, super rare crystal nuggets like this one
can fetch up to 500 times the value of their weight in gold.
If we can get onto the crystal gold
we can get a big pay day out of this.
I've just touched on a bit of pipe clay down there now.
OK.
Yeah, well, Murray's pulled all the rest of the gravels
and pipe clay out of that hole and he's throwing that up top here
and he's grabbed that dozer and he's flattened it all out
to about 150 mil thick so
just in case there are some smaller bits,
mate, these detectors will hear it from a mile away.
Over time, heavy gold sinks deeper
and deeper in the soil
but the densely packed layer of pipeclay acts like bedrock,
trapping the gold on its surface.
So, start here, darling,
and make sure you are covering everything.
Yep.
Any little sound you always double check it, alright?
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
What's that there, darling? I like the sound of that.
There it is there. That's a tiny piece of gold.
Hey, there you go. A little micro crumb.
Yep. Beautiful. Oh, yeah. A little one.
Well done, darling. Your first piece.
Look how bright it is. It's beautiful.
It's lovely. It all adds up to be honest.
So, I'll take anything at this stage.
Sounded like gold to me.
Oh, I think it is. It's a piece of gold.
(LAUGHS) Oh, my gosh it's another nice one.
Wow! I really like the look of that one.
Oh, my god! Ah! Nice.
Oh, just finished detecting that pad over there.
It's all looking really good.
Murray's just about finished his next hole over here.
Oh, look out.
I think we've got some sort of issue.
Hey, Murray, Murray.
Yeah, mate. Mate, do you want to hold up there?
I think we've got some sort of a leak.
Where abouts?
Yeah, I'm just walking over now, mate. Don't move.
Mate, we've got some oil coming out of here.
Do you want to maybe come down and have a look?
We don't need this at the moment.
We're just about to get on to some good gold, I reckon.
00:21:36.840 -- 00:21:38.760 Nah, we're not getting through there.
We're gonna have to go back.
It would have been great if we got through.
We would have been there in 15 minutes instead of two hours
but we are just going to have to double back,
take the long road and walk in.
Alright let's pull the pin on this track.
OK.
In the depths of the Palmer River Goldfields,
Jacqui and Andrew are battling to reach their target,
an abandoned settlement surrounded by what they hope
are gold rich gullies.
It was worth a shot. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I think that old town is down here too, isn't it?
We're going to Stony Creek, aren't we?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, what that means? There's got to be gold around.
That's right. Yep.
Oh, well, let's go for a detect.
Yeah. I'm sick of driving.
I know, right.
Rightio, let's go and have a swing.
Looks good here. Yeah.
Let's do it.
Good luck. Get some.
Watch out for snakes.
Now, we're just going to check around this old township.
Hopefully, the old timers camped here
because there was heaps of gold
and we will try and find what they didn't.
During the Palmer River gold rush of the 1870s,
over 20,000 prospectors settled in the area.
One of the most remote outposts was Stonyville.
Despite its isolation, it had a population of hundreds...
but only a few decades later,
the surface gold had dried up
and Stonyville was abandoned.
There's heaps of old stuff here.
Bits and pieces and relics all over the place here.
Old match box tins.
Look at all this stuff.
I mean, unless you start looking closely
you wouldn't even know that there was a town here.
Most of it would have been weathered away
and all the old buildings are gone but it's a big reminder that,
you know, people worked hard here and people, people died here.
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
Sounds alright.
First bit of gold for the year would be good.
Alright.
I'm gonna find out what it is.
Ah, you beauty!
First one of the year.
Cracker!
Couple of grams there.
It's good to see it again.
Well, that's pretty much it
for the carbon.
Got to load it up into the bulkies.
I think I've got about under two tonne sitting here...
so, yeah, it's time to get it loaded onto the trailer
and get it out of here.
Get the gold out of it and make some money.
We're stretched very thin at the moment.
I mean, we're trying to set up a whole processing plant.
We realistically need this to be done as quick as possible.
The longer we're not processing the longer we're not making money,
we're just spending it so we are in the red at the moment,
we really need to get back in the black
and actually put some gold on the table.
At their new base, the Phoenix Project,
the Gold Devils are optimistic
that gold from their heap leach will cover the costs
of their big move.
Alright, better check out the containers.
Check how everything's travelled.
Oh, god!
It's been crushed.
G'day, Paul. Got a copy?
Yeah, mate, go ahead.
Mate, I think you want to come have a look at this.
It's not looking too good up here. Yeah, right.
I'm just strapping down these bags, mate.
I'll be there in a sec.
Roger.
The housing for the team's $90,000 ball mill,
the most expensive part of the wet plant,
was damaged in the move.
What is happening?
Come and just take a look and let me know what you think.
Oh.
Well, we knew it was doing something
when the crane was lifting it.
We could hear it. Yeah.
And we have folded the roof.
Yeah, well, that cable could be pinched on the inside
and if that happens and you start it up
it will electrify the whole thing.
The team's best hope for gold is their stockpile of pay dirt,
which can't be processed
until they make the repairs to the housing.
We need to straighten it out, get the electrician in,
run fresh cable.
Great, so that sounds like more time and money.
But the good thing is we can get all that from Kal anyway.
Yeah.
I'm about to shoot through to Kal and get this carbon stripped.
Well, nothing can go together while this is in that state.
No.
Alright well, we might as well, pack up and head off.
We desperately need to turn our season around
to have any chance of getting back on track for this 1,000 ounces.
Paul's heap leach has to deliver.
I'll go back and see Jacqui and see how she's gone.
We got those couple of little nuggets,
which have covered fuel for the day but it's really not good enough.
Hey, how did you go?
I don't want to talk about that.
Oh, that well, eh?
Yeah, I think we should just move away from here.
Righto. We'll go and see if we can get on this haul road hey?
Yep. Yep. Let's give that a shot.
Sounds like a plan. Righto. Let's go.
In remote Far North Queensland, Jacqui and Andrew
are using unmaintained roads
built by mining companies in the 1980s.
Hopefully this haul road leads straight to a good patch
because if we don't get onto some decent gold pretty quick,
things are going to get tight for us hey.
Just watch out for that edge 'cause that is a steep drop.
I can't even see the track.
This is really sketchy.
It's impossible to turn around here.
Oh, there's no turning around.
This is a pretty squeeze in through here.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hang on.
There is a massive wash out in the track there, Andy.
Yeah, well, I'm tied up against the side of the hill there.
I can't really go over. Alright, just nice and steady.
I can't even see.
I'm right on the edge. Oh, god!
It is so tight.
Watch out!
Righto, we're through.
Over we go, hey?
Oh, man.
Whoa. Whoa! Oooh!
Oh, we made it. That was a mission.
That was a hard drive. Far out!
There'd better be some gold when we get there.
Alright, let's get going.
There's no stopping this car.
Well, this looks good.
This is getting us right down there now, mate.
We made it!
Ooh!
Hell, yeah! Well done!
How good's that? Yeah!
Nice job. Alright.
And this looks wicked.
Yeah, it does, hey? Yeah.
Let's go detecting. I'm keen to get some gold.
This must have been just all old timers diggings,
this whole area and they have just come in
with the bulldozer and just taken the lot.
Taken it all. Yep.
Good luck. Yeah, good luck.
Get that gold.
I'm really hoping this little bit of a gamble
Andy and I took with these haul roads paid off
because our plan and strategy is to travel
deeper and deeper and hopefully get those big nuggets
that no-one else has found yet.
Going to head up to a bit of higher ground
and see if there's any gold sort of surrounding this area.
It's either another piece of junk or a really good piece of gold.
Piece of junk.
So, this looks like an old pellet, a little bit of lead.
Not what I came here for.
Mate, we've got some oil coming out of here.
Do you want to come down and have a look?
Yep, coming down, man.
Oh, (BLEEP)!
Mate, it's not looking good. OK, mate.
Look how much has come out.
You haven't been here long, have you?
Nah. Mate, it's soaking wet.
Yeah.
In the Talbot Goldfields, in the eastern state of Victoria,
work has ground to a halt on Vince and Bibbi's new lease,
due to an oil leak on their 25 tonne excavator.
It appears we've got a serious leak
in one of the final drives.
It's not what we need right now.
It could be expensive.
Hopefully, it's just a hose and it can get a nip up
but it's the final drive.
It could be thousands and thousands of dollars.
The final drive powers the excavator's tracks.
If it has failed, the machine will be unusable,
leaving the team dead in the water.
Alright, let's go see what we got.
Unreal!
Righto.
So, we've got a split in the hose, somewhere around here hey?
Yeah.
The only way we are really going to be able to find out
what the story is here, Murray, is if you track it a little bit,
I guess, and see where it's pumping out from.
It appears like it's only a hose,
which is a lot cheaper than a final drive so it should only be,
you know, $500, $600 dollar repair instead of a couple of 1,000.
Yep.
Yeah, here it is here.
It's the steel hose, Murray.
It's got a small pin prick hole in it
and it's leaking out pretty good.
Well, it's not as bad as we thought but it's not ideal.
What do you reckon, mate?
Well, look I reckon we can keep going today mate,
as long as we stay in this area and we don't track too far.
Alright, let's get back to business eh?
Back to get some gold out there.
We can't fix it today.
We'll continue on today and we'll do very little tracking.
That way we'll lose very little hydraulic oil.
We'll fix it in the next couple of days.
There's plenty at stake here.
I've invested over $0.25 million with the machines and the property.
I really want to make it work so yeah,
I'll do my darndest to make it work.
Be nice to get some gold through.
Murray's just finished cleaning out the bottom of this hole.
Got a fair few bits of good gold out of the one before
so, I'm just going to head down the bottom
and see if we can find anything in the bottom of the hole.
You just never know
what you're going to pull out of the ground.
It could be anything. It could be a $5 piece.
It could be $100,000 piece.
(DETECTOR BEEPS)
Whoa! Hey, Murray, have a listen to this.
That sounds nice. They sound good, don't they?
Hurry up and dig it out.
She's out, mate. She's out.
Geez I love that sound though. Yeah.
Look at this, mate. Does it feel heavy?
Please tell me it feels heavy. Oh, yeah.
Oh, my god. I can see it from here.
That's more than a bloody ounce, hey?
That's it. Oh, my goodness.
That is stunning from here.
It is gorgeous. Ooh!
00:34:12.240 -- 00:34:13.280 I've started working
in this little gully,
see if I can find the stuff the old timers missed
and the '80s boys never got.
This is exactly what we want to see, a little gully like this
and often the nuggets will run up on the side walls.
They get stuck in the clays there.
Wow, this one is screaming.
I'm excited now.
Oh, you bloody ripper!
Now, we're getting there.
There's a good six or eight grams of gold in that one.
That's making money. That's wicked.
Once you get onto gold you've got to go low and slow
and investigate every single noise.
(DETECTOR BEEPS) Oh, yeah!
Hell, yeah!
Hope she's gold but that sounds wicked.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
Alright.
Time to find out.
Oh, yes! That's solid that one.
You bloody ripper!
That's got to be an ounce of gold there.
That's why we come here.
That's what The Palmer's all about, that one.
Phew!
That's how you make money.
That's 2,500 grand, 3,000 grand right there.
What a start to the season, you know, to punch out $4,000 day
straight up, straight on to old timers workings.
Our method worked, the haul roads paid off,
everything's going to plan.
You did good today. Yep.
You alright?
Oh, I just had one of those days.
Sorry. No, it's alright.
I've been there. I've been where you are.
You'll get it tomorrow, mate.
One swing of the coil
and everything can change in one swing.
You know that.
Thank you. You'll be right.
C'mon, let's get out of here.
Alright, let's see how we went.
I'm looking forward to seeing how much that big one weighs.
I think you might bust the ounce on that.
I'm hoping so. Let's find out.
Alright.
Yes! Awesome!
Just over an ounce. 1.09 ounces.
Let's see what we get now. That's a nice nug.
Well done.
Ooh! 1.5. Yeah.
Just over 1.5 ounces. That's not a bad start.
With 1.52 ounces
on the scales
and on the tally board,
Jacqui and Andrew's return
to Palmer River
is off to a solid start.
But we have got a 50-ounce goal too
so, we've still got a long way to go yet.
You did well, mate.
If it was up to me that would by saying zero
right now, so we're on our way to hitting our 50-ounce target.
We are.
Every nugget, great and small counts.
The Palmer River eh?
It's one of a kind this place.
That's a beautiful piece.
That's gotta be three or four ounces.
I hope so, mate. This will put a dint in our tally.
Yes. Well done!
That might pay for our leaks in our excavator.
I'm shaking. I'm nervous.
It's been small, small, small and we didn't know
there was anything decent here and that's a ripper.
The first week of Vince and Bibbi's dream mining project
has delivered a morale-boosting find.
Mate I'm over the moon.
Thank God it's here.
You want to have a look, Bibbi? Yeah, yeah, I do.
One hand.
Oh, it's gorgeous.
Oh, my god!
Oh, yes!
More of this.
How much do you reckon that's worth, Murray?
I don't know. I'm going to put it on the scales.
Yeah, alright.
I've got scales in the car, mate. I want to know now.
I want to know. I need to know.
Let's see what we got.
Yeah. Yeah.
What do you think? I don't know, mate.
I'm... The scales will tell the truth?
..They do. They always tell the truth.
Alright, Bibbi, after you, darling.
Shall I go first? Let's go.
Yep, let's see how we go.
That's a nice little haul. What have we got there?
0.434 of an ounce.
So, I'll go next and see if we can add a bit more.
Yeah.
Beautiful. That's alright.
0.6. Nice.
Well, let's see if we made a profit.
4.690 4.690.
Wow! Absolutely beautiful.
Excellent. That's what we want to see.
Quick multiply that in dollars.
$12,000.
The haul is a good first step
towards the trio's 40-ounce target.
Well done, guys.
Good work team. Well done. Champs.
Bibbi. Bibbi, you did well.
Gold's not going to dig itself out. Sun's out.
Let's go dig some more gold. Yes. Let's do it.
Let's go get some more, guys. Come on.
It was such a relief to see there was potential big gold
through that gully there that we've got an opportunity
to go and get and chase.
Good one, darling. Yeah.
More gold. More gold, hun, more gold.
Well, it's been a hard few weeks
of packing and moving, hasn't it?
We desperately need to get this season back on track
if we are gonna have any hope of hitting this 1,000 ounces.
Let's see what this black carbon sludge has to offer.
After processing the carbon solution at a nearby plant,
Paul has brought the recovered gold to his workshop.
Stage one complete though.
We've stripped it, tried to do a bit of a gold pour,
we didn't leave it in for long enough.
Oh, OK.
So, when we pulled it out of the mould, she broke in half.
Wow, it's not the colour that I was expecting.
Just looks horrible, doesn't it?
We don't know how much of that is gold.
There's still a lot of impurities in there
so, we will re-melt it
and get a proper weight at the end of it hey.
Yeah.
This could be a couple of 100,000 or it could be
virtually nothing.
The gold contains high levels of copper
and a semi-metal called antimony.
Only re-melting at a high enough temperature
will remove the impurities and reveal the true gold value.
Some of the chemicals that make the metal bind together better,
others are in there to pull out the impurities
and hopefully when we pour the bar, the gold's on the bottom,
the impurities on the top, you snap off the slag,
the waste and you are left with a nice chunk of gold.
The first load's in
and now it just has to get up to temperature,
1,150.
Right. Be careful.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
Didn't explode. Well, that's always a good thing.
What do you think?
It's hard to tell when you tip it out,
break the slag off, we'll see.
So, that bit there, that's the slag
that's come off the top of it?
Yeah. That's the rubbish. The first bit.
Yeah, it still looks pretty silvery though.
Actually a pretty good looking bar.
Give it a polish up.
From that to that. It's a huge difference.
With enough raw material for a further two pours,
the Gold Devils have a grand total of three freshly minted gold bars.
Lucky number three.
They look pretty shiny. They do. They've come up great.
Should we weigh it up? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Ladies first. Ladies first of course.
Wow. Over a kilo.
Over a kilo just there.
2,276 grams. 2.2 kilos.
This is the one.
Lucky number three. 3.3 kilos.
Up there! Well done!
That's awesome. 3.3.
So, that's like $270,000.
The incredible weigh-in
of more than 106 ounces
puts the new team on track
for a record-breaking
1,000 ounce season.
Cheers! It's going to be a good year, isn't it?
Cheers, guys.
Best day ever!
(LAUGHTER)
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv