This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Couple million dollars worth of equipment
sitting idle at the moment.
It ain't working so it's a dead asset.
After a rocky start... I'm not a fan of metal detecting
but you've got to keep producing gold.
..the Gold Devils pin their hopes on an exploration mission
to a rugged outback lease where their fortunes finally turn.
Look at that!
No way!
Look at the size of those!
In tropical Queensland, Jacqui and Andrew
struggle to break a gold drought...
So bloody hard to get a pick in there. Junk.
..and discover a camp intruder...
Who would have done this? No food left at all.
..and floodwaters cripple the Gold Retrievers'
new 75,000 dollar plant...
You're kidding me. That's another eight grand down the drain.
That motor's full of water now so I'm absolutely devastated.
..forcing Brad and Chris to question their future.
I'm ready to give up, mate. I, I can't do this anymore.
So I'm off to a lease that's ah, been in the family
for a couple of decades.
Hopefully find some decent nuggets
and, and turn our season around.
Mel and Alex at the moment, they're back at the Phoenix Project
basically getting on top of all the repairs
that needed to be done after the move.
Check the other side of the truck for me, please.
You got about that much space on that side.
We've got a couple of million dollars worth of machinery
and all our gears just sitting idle at the moment.
It ain't working so it's a dead asset.
Last week, Paul's heap leach
kick-started the Gold Devil's season...
Wow! 3.3 kilos.
Well done.
..but the gold barely covered the cost
of moving their operation to new ground.
Three vehicles, two car trailers, three road trains and the crane.
Oh God!
And the move critically damaged the plant,
stopping them from getting more gold.
Great. So that sounds like more time and money.
At the moment, we're not even running any pay dirt
and it's realistically not the start to the season
that we were hoping for.
I'm off to find some new ground, and hopefully,
get us back on the money.
In the inhospitable Western Australian gold fields,
Paul Mackie is heading to the two-kilometre square
Desert King lease
on a critical exploration mission.
This season we've um, we've basically gone in
hell for leather.
We've set a target of a thousand ounces.
We've hit a few roadblocks
but we've got to keep producing gold.
So that's why we're out here doing one of the things that I hate,
which is metal detecting
but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Today we've pretty much got the family out here,
we've got both me cousins, Dave and Darren.
Darren's going to be digging the gold targets out,
if I can find some.
Let's get into it.
He's basically an all rounder. He can do anything,
and yeah, Dave's going to be in the dozer,
clearing all this vegetation away.
22 years ago, I was wandering through here,
I picked up some really deep targets,
really good sized gold. But the trees that were in the way,
I had no hope.
Having the bigger machine, we've got a real chance
of hopefully hitting some of those bigger pieces again.
You on channel there, Dave? Yeah, mate.
Jump in the dozer.
I'll meet you down the back end of the cut.
For us to even make that thousand ounce target a reality,
every chance you get to push new ground
and find new gold, you got to take it.
Dave will use a 90 tonne crawler dozer
to strip away the heavy scrub
and expose virgin ground for Paul to detect.
The bigger the equipment, the more ground you can clear.
It's definitely the right tool for the job.
You right for me to come in there now, mate?
Yeah, mate. You're right to go.
Well. hopefully we can pick something through here, Darren.
Yeah, well hopefully there's a few of them around here.
Everyone that knows me knows I'm not a fan of metal detecting.
Me personally, I've never really found too much gold
metal detecting.
My biggest one, I think, is about 28 grams.
It was exciting at the time but then you go through, you know,
lengthy periods of finding nothing
and I guess that's where my energy levels,
walking around the bush, waving the magic wand,
kind of disappeared.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Oi.
Sounds alright. Well, there's a start.
Make it a big one, Darren.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Nugget number one, hopefully.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
There it is.
Nice little one to start the day.
Yeah, maybe a gram and a half,
two grams.
It's not going to pay for the diesel bill though.
Couple of sandwiches and a carton but...
This kind of gold's more like a hobby, not a living.
So at the start of the season, you know Alex and Mel,
we got together and got some good ground
so we thought we'd set a decent target,
a big pay day at the end of the season.
We've set a target of a thousand ounces.
At this stage, it looks very, very unrealistic.
Little pieces of gold just aren't gonna cut it.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Wahey, another one.
Didn't sound very good though.
(MACHINE BEEPS) A little sister, mate.
They're all staying the same size, aren't they?
You got a copy there, Dave?
Might just want to push another 20 odd metres.
Been out here nearly all day
and we've found less than an ounce.
To be out here waving a magic wand,
trying to find a needle in a haystack,
it's kinda demoralising really.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Only little.
Let's get into it down there.
Must be only a little piece.
We've been looking for it for five minutes now, mate.
If it's that hard to find, it's probably worth
just leaving behind.
C'mon, what's it going to be?
(MACHINE BEEPS)
No wonder it was so hard to find, mate.
It's only a little one.
That's the smallest one yet.
You don't seem too impressed with this, mate.
No, I'm not.
And this was supposed to be a turning point for us.
It's supposed to be big gold out here
but finding these little tiddly pieces of gold,
it just doesn't, doesn't do it for me.
What's the plan from here?
Mate, I'm just about ready to pack up, to be honest with you.
Feels like it's a big waste of time.
Well, if you're saying that you found a little bit of gold
in this gully that we're headed to,
maybe I'll be able to get my first nug' for the season.
I know you've been off to a rough start.
Especially since I've been hitting a few,
I'm actually feeling a bit guilty.
Maybe you shouldn't tell me when you find a nugget
until I've found mine and I've broken the drought.
It will turn around, mate, but right now,
I think what we need to be more worried about
is finding a good campsite before it gets dark.
We're going to have to be pretty careful here.
It's a dangerous gold field.
Exploration prospectors Jacqui Buzetti
and Andrew Leahy are amongst the few people
permitted to access the remote Palmer River Rainforest
of Far North Queensland.
They're on an overnight detecting mission
deep into the hunting grounds of some of Australia's
most dangerous wildlife.
Apex predators like saltwater crocodiles
who hide in its murky waters,
and snakes with paralysing venom
like the Coastal Taipan and King Brown.
Bit of flat ground up on top of a hill would be good.
We don't want to camp near water again.
That's too dangerous with the crocodiles.
I think this might be alright.
Looks flat and everything.
Righto, well let's get it set up.
It would be good to get everything set up
and secure before it gets dark.
Right, I'm all done. Yep.
Swag, tent, fire.
And a couple of new items for this year.
Oh, you got us trail cams.
Yeah, yeah, bit of security around camp, eh?
That way if there's anyone snooping around, we'll know.
Because we did see those dodgy people getting around last year.
There's a car. Yeah, he's sussing us out for sure.
I feel really nervous now.
So be good to make sure everything's safe.
So we came into this gully because you know,
it backs onto other good gold ground that we've worked.
There's plenty of old timer diggings in here
and I actually picked up a couple of little nuggets here in the summer.
Hey look. Check out the stone pitching.
That's proper old timers workings. Yeah.
If we keep pushing up further and we'll probably get onto it,
I reckon.
Last week...
I think this is some of the last unsearched ground in the whole area.
..Jacqui and Andrew trekked deeper into the gold fields
than ever before...
Nah, we're not getting through there.
..on the hunt for new ground...
Oh yes! You bloody ripper!
..but the mission ended in frustration for Jacqui.
Oh, piece of junk.
I literally packed up my entire life,
left my job, left my house, everything.
And I've found no gold.
So we're having a little look around this area.
It's near a lot of old gold workings from back in the 1800s.
There's been a lot of erosion since then
and the old timers didn't have detectors,
so see if they left us anything behind.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
There's always a lot of junk in these areas the old timers worked
so you don't get too excited.
Wait until you see the gold before you count your chickens,
hey.
Junk here everywhere.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Well, that's loud.
Right under that tree root.
They always end up
in between all these tree roots
and it's so bloody hard to get a pick in there.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Here we go.
Junk!
It's just a waste of time.
Oh, new spot tomorrow. Yep.
Not enough gold here to warrant coming back.
No.
I'm really struggling.
We do really need to get onto some good gold.
Did you leave your tent open when we left this morning?
Oh!
Why is that all opened up? Oh!
What the hell?
Oh man!
What the hell?
What is this?
I don't understand. Who would have done this?
Is anything missing?
00:11:41.480 -- 00:11:43.840 I'm just coming off the main road into our track to site,
and it's looking pretty dodgy to be honest. Um...
We've had a lot of rain.
It's just so slippery.
Had a bit of a setback last week. We got all the plant up
and ah, you know, ready to run,
but I unfortunately had the wrong generator.
So I've just made the mad dash to Perth,
it's been about a 16 hour round trip
but I got a generator so that's the main thing.
The goal right now is just to get this generator to site,
get all the crushing plant up and running,
and um, start finding some gold.
Outside Coolgardie in remote Western Australia,
Brad McGhie of the Gold Retrievers
must haul a one tonne generator across muddy track
to reach the Devil's Cut lease.
Woah! This is sticky as.
Two kilometres away,
team mate Chris Smith
is detecting for nuggets at their old dig site.
Definitely not ideal
detecting in this weather.
It affects the detectors.
It's the pairs' only way of finding gold
with their plant still out of action.
This generator's cost us 10,000 dollars
so that's really put a massive dent in our season target
before we've even started.
That affects everything, not just here but at home.
I've got a lot of family relying on me, you know.
I've got a wife and we've got six kids between us
so this operation, you know,
there's just so much relying on it.
Yeah, the car's sliding.
Oh, I've lost control here.
Come on.
I don't need this crap.
This is...
I'm never getting out of this, man.
Far out! Ugh!
Hopefully this season is going to be an epic season for us.
Last week, the Gold Retrievers started their season
with dreams of running a new 75,000 dollar wash plant...
If we can get that up and running, mate,
we're going to do very bloody well, I reckon.
..but a generator problem left the expensive set-up
on their remote lease unusable...
We always tell other people, come prepared,
and here we are unprepared.
..and the pair barely made a dent
in their ambitious 50 ounce season target.
First one for the season. It's nothing to write home about.
Eh Chris, you got a copy there, mate?
Yeah, mate.
Mate, I'm stuck.
Good news is I got a genny.
Bad news is I can't get it to you.
I'm just at camp, mate. I'll see if I can get you out
and we'll tow you back to site.
I'll see you shortly, thanks mate.
I can't believe how wet it is here.
It wasn't like this when I left.
And God knows what the camp looks like.
I can hear Chris coming.
If the loader doesn't get us out, then I don't know what will.
Mate, I'm going to be lucky to pull you out of there.
I know.
I was slipping all over the track just getting here.
Mate, that track coming in was an absolute mess, man.
I'm surprised I got this far.
I got a new generator by the way.
Well done, mate. I hope we can use it!
Yeah if we could get it to camp, we could use it.
Alright.
That should do it, mate.
Good.
Yeah mate, ready when you are.
Oh, I hope this works.
If we don't get this out, it will hurt.
Yeah boy, she's moving!
Woo hoo! Yes!
Righto, Chris ah, looks good there, mate. I'll unhook us.
Roger, mate. At least we're out.
Must have had a bit of rain, eh, Chris?
Yeah, I've never seen so much rain in my life actually.
Ah, is that the concentrator under water, is it?
Holy BLEEP!
Never seen water like that here.
You're kidding me!
Nah. Holy crap man.
That's got an electric motor on it and this is getting
a bit beyond a joke now.
That is underwater, mate. That is just destroyed.
That's another eight grand down the drain.
And then we've just bought a 10,000 dollar generator.
That we can't use at the moment.
We haven't even started yet,
and we're BLEEP 20 grand in the hold already.
I'm ready to give up, mate. I can't do this anymore.
I'm, I'm over it. I'm ready just to go home.
Even though we are finding gold here,
it's not enough.
You know we've set a season target of a thousand ounces.
We've found, you know, less than an ounce.
We've been here nearly all day.
The nuggets are just getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
With his main operation,
the Phoenix Project on hold,
Gold Devil Paul Mackie is hoping his unproven
Desert King lease
holds game changing gold.
The gold's just not big enough.
It's not going to pay the bills, so...
Don't you think it's worth doing one more push, mate?
Well, while we've got the dozer here,
if I was going to do another push,
I'd probably go a bit down further
where it's a bit more deeper soil.
You got a channel there, Dave?
Yeah, roger that.
Might just do one more small cut, give it another hour or so,
and if there's nothing after that, we'll pack up and go.
We are finding gold here but it's not really worth our time
exploring it any further.
So yeah, we'll just do one more cut here
and hopefully we get something decent out of it.
If not, that's it, game over.
We know there is bigger nuggets here
because they've come out of here before
but let's hope we really get onto one sooner or later.
If it's going to be here,
it's going to be in this cut right now.
Things didn't work out the way I wanted them to
the last couple of years, and just a hell of a lot of expense
and time away from the family.
It wears you down.
What we're finding here at the moment,
it's not going to pay the bills, and it's not going to make
any dent in that season tally that we've got.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Well, that's a good sound.
It's still in there.
Oh, that's a thumper by the sound of it.
Either that or it's right on the top.
Hang on! Hey! Back there.
You serious?
Ah ha ha ha. Look at that!
Oh my God!
Nice one, mate. Nice one.
Look at the size of that. Feel the weight of that.
That is a thumper.
Well, lucky I didn't pick it.
That's what we came here for! Right there.
That's what we came here for.
Hey Dave!
Oh, you frickin' beauty!
It would be at least what? Three ouncer.
Maybe a bit more?
Yeah, it's a three or four ouncer. Easy.
That is beautiful. That is amazing.
That is literally the biggest nugget
I've ever pulled out of the ground.
Really? Yeah.
Alright, I'm going to keep going.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Can't be two in the same hole.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Mate, did you hear the sound of it?
It's a bloody good sound.
Oh! Oh, look at that!
Wahey! Look at that!
What a beauty!
What?
Oh my God!
Two, you know, literally basically in the same hole.
That's phenomenal.
Are you starting to like detecting now, mate?
I'll be happy to keep on the rest of the day
if that's what's coming out of the ground.
That's an easy 12 and a half grand, that.
If it stays like this, we're going to need more people.
I'll um, give Alex and Mel a call and see if they can get down here.
I think we'll be working into the night, boys.
I'm keen to keep going. Team effort.
Yeah, let's go for it.
We can't just leave it sitting in the water, man.
We've got to try and save something.
I'm not going in to get it. I've just driven 16 hours, mate,
so, but we need to get that out of there.
On their Devil's Cut lease,
torrential rains have flooded the Gold Retriever's dam
and submerged their new 75,000 dollar gold recovery plant.
This is the absolute last thing I expected.
I've just sort of rocked back with the generator
and then we're having these sort of problems now.
I mean, we potentially cost ourself
probably another five to ten grand.
Yeah, it's sort of got me thinking about um,
what we're doing here really.
So all the machines are jammed up together
so I'll have to just drag this one back so I can get to them.
OK, bring her around, mate.
Brad and Chris's plant has four connected machines
that crush and wash pay dirt.
The 8,000 dollar concentrator that recovers gold
with centrifugal force is most at risk.
We need to get this gear out of here.
I think there's a fair bit of weather coming in again so...
There's a potential we're going to lose
everything here, mate.
We can try and salvage what we can, hey.
Are you gonna go for a swim, are ya?
Looks like it. I got the bad coin toss.
I'm hoping we can salvage something out of this
but uh I know that motor's full of water now.
Oh, that's cold.
I've gotta shape this nicely just so I don't damage
any more than what's already waterlogged.
Pull him out slowly,
and hopefully, we can get it dried out.
Come down, mate.
Worst case scenario is the motor's stuffed
and we've got water in all the electrical parts.
That's where all the money is.
Righto bud, up you go.
That's devastating, mate.
Mate, I am absolutely gutted.
Eight grands worth of gear.
She's chockers full of mud, mate.
It'll be nice to salvage it but um,
it's not looking good, is it?
That motor's gotta come off it, Bud.
It's not good. It's not good at all.
We'll strip it down and have a look.
Fingers crossed we've not damaged it too badly.
So it doesn't look as bad as what I thought it would.
It might only cost us you know,
a thousand bucks, fifteen hundred
to get it rebuilt.
Well, at least it's not 8,000 dollars damage, mate.
No. It's a lot better than I thought.
But I mean either way, it's gonna have to go back to Perth
and get stripped down because a lot of that dirty water
out of the dam's all gone through it.
About a week turnaround.
Mate, look we're here now, man, the sun's out,
I say we go and do some work. We'll go down the corridor.
I'll take the digger down there and do some detecting, hey?
Make hay while the sun shines, mate.
Yeah, we'll see if we can find a bit of gold and salvage the trip.
00:22:38.520 -- 00:22:40.120 What the hell?
Who would do this?
No food left at all.
Even our BLEEP water.
All the fresh stuff's gone.
I had a bag of meat that I took out this morning
that I was going to cook up.
There it is.
There's what's left of it. Well, everything's still here,
like the generator and everything's still here.
I think something's been into camp.
I'm just going to check the trail cams.
Hey Jacqui, you need to check this out.
I know what was around camp.
What's that?
That's a feral pig.
Are you serious? Yeah.
There's pigs all through this country.
I did not think it would come in towards our camp though.
That's really scary.
There are an estimated 24 million feral pigs in Australia.
They are an invasive species that destroys crops,
the environment,
and are known to charge at humans.
I know they're around.
I had that close encounter here only a few weeks ago really.
I've got the video here.
This is what we call Butterfly Gorge.
Checking out the caves.
Oh my God!
Yeah, it was a close call, eh. He just charged me.
Holy crap.
I don't think we can hang around here too much longer now.
I mean, probably got a day or two's worth of food left now.
I don't know. We just pushed all that way into this area.
We don't really have much time to look around
so if we hit the hotspots straight away,
hopefully we get something good and then we can go
and do a supply run afterwards.
Alright, let's just hit the best ground we can.
I've been having a look at the satellite imagery
and there's a haul road not too far from here.
I think it's our best prospect.
These unmaintained haul roads
were constructed over 40 years ago,
when mining companies explored the Palmer River
for the first time
since the gold rush of the 1800s.
We chase up haul roads, we know that some of them
are going to fail and we'll come out
empty handed,
but when they work, they put us right on the good gold.
Righto, I'm pretty well ready.
I might head down the creek
and try down lower in the gully.
Pulled up on this little gully, and the ground looks fantastic
and we can't see any workings from anyone.
No modern signs at all. Like this is really untouched ground.
Really like the look of this ground.
Ancient water systems eroded channels through the ground,
concentrating the heavy gold material in creek beds.
Over time, the water dried up,
leaving the gold behind, in the gullies.
Oh what?
No way.
I think this is part of a gun.
All the old timers used to carry pistols around.
It's got to be at least over a hundred years old.
Anyone who detected this spot would have definitely found it
so I know that I'm probably the first person
with a metal detector on this spot.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
What the hell's going on there?
Bloody hell. I know what that is.
Yeah. BLEEP.
Another broken bloody coil.
The old girl's done a lot of miles.
I've rubbed it over too many rocks.
Jacqui, you got a copy? Yeah, mate.
Yeah, I just broke my coil.
You're kidding.
Nah, I'm going to have to hike back to the car
and change it out.
Bloody hours walk, wrecked coil. Really didn't have time for this.
God dammit.
Well, I mean we set a thousand ounce target.
Pretty ambitious of us really.
We've hit a few snags so I'm hoping that,
where Paul is right now, and what he's finding,
can turn that around for us.
If he's onto something that would be a big help
because at the moment, we're not really producing anything.
We need gold and if Paul is gonna deliver that,
then that's a big win for us.
Melanie Wood and Alex Stead
have made the six-hour drive from the Gold Devils' base
to help teammate Paul Mackie target nugget rich ground
on the Desert King lease.
Hey guys.
Yo Paul!
You made it.
One little spot on the map and you found it.
How you going?
Good to see you. How you going? Yeah, good.
Well, you got me at the right time.
Can you hear that?
That sounds interesting.
Worked well into the night last night
and just kept adding to the tally.
Want to have a look? Yeah.
Oh, hell yeah.
Oh my goodness! No way.
Look at the size of those.
Oh my God!
That's chunks of happiness right there.
It sure is.
This is the biggest nugget I've ever seen.
This is the biggest nugget I've ever found.
So what are we doing here, Paul? What's the plan?
Well, plan is we've got a lot of ground to cover,
a lot of work to get done,
um, I want to get in and get done as much as we can
before we start getting the poachers wandering around.
Yeah.
The minute they see all the tracks coming in here,
they're going to be all over us.
Let's get in, get it done and make as much gold as we can
for our massive season tally.
Get some gold.
Here we go.
I'm not a big fan of metal detecting, but in saying that,
yesterday I found the biggest nugget that I've ever found.
So, you know, I'm happy to have this thing strapped to me arm
for another few days.
That's why I had to call up Mel and Alex.
We want all hands on deck to try and get as much of this gold
out of the ground as quickly as possible.
While Paul and his cousin Darren detect the gold rich patch,
Mel and Alex are searching higher ground
to try and locate the source of the gold.
There's actually a quartz reef
popping up just around the corner here.
See how the quartz is coming all the way down here?
Oh yep.
Looks like a juicy quartz reef.
Generally gold comes with the quartz,
so this is a good indicator.
Well, I'll tell you what...
Oh wow.
There are other minerals running in with the quartz...
Wow.
..and if there are other minerals
then every chance that that could be gold
carried in with it.
Gold was formed in this area over two and a half billion years ago.
When hot, pressurised fluid carrying gold and quartz
from the Earth's mantle
travelled along fault lines.
Over time, the veins cooled and hardened
before decomposing,
leaving behind gold rich patches known as reefs.
Right, let's get into it.
Just need some ah, indicators now,
actual gold indicators on the detector
to show us that this is actually producing gold.
Gold-bearing quartz
could indicate a gold reef below the surface,
the source of the large nuggets Paul is uncovering
on lower ground.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
I thought it was a bigger sound than normal.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Oh, you beauty.
Oh, look at that!
What a pearler.
That's a nice chunk, isn't it?
That is beautiful.
Have to be close to an ounce.
Alex and Mel better hurry up, mate.
Yeah, they'd better.
They're going to miss out on all the fun.
This is possibly where the gold's come from
so if we can find specimens...
Uh huh.
..that would be a good indicator that the gold
has actually come from this far up.
(MACHINE BEEPS) That sounds alright.
Oh!
No way!
That's gold. No way!
Oh my God, it's all over it.
It's not solid gold, but you know what?
It's a quartz specimen.
That's as good an indicator as you get.
Picking up nuggets is great but once they're gone, they're gone.
When you find a quartz reef, that could lead to an ore body
or a mother lode.
The find is proof there is a gold-bearing quartz reef
on the lease.
A reef that could hold the mother lode.
Well, we came here looking for nuggets
and we've got a specimen.
I mean, that's a game changer.
Who found the gold? We found the gold.
00:31:15.000 -- 00:31:17.040 Alright, so we're back to digging now.
Um the wet plant situation
is not going too well at the moment
so we need to get a few repairs done
before we can get back on that.
With the Gold Retrievers' new plant damaged by flood water,
the team's only chance of finding gold
is the push and detect method they used last season.
And we're back on the Devil's Cut.
We're ah, opening up some new ground.
This wet weather's probably helped us a little bit
to loosen up this ground, mate.
Mate, it's um making it a bit easier to dig
so it's a good opportunity to get in before it dries out again.
In a 25 tonne excavator,
Brad digs up pay dirt from a new pit.
Then Chris uses the front loader
to spread it into 15 centimetre thick pads
ready to be detected.
I've only been up here a short while and I'm already missing the family.
Yeah, I've got the little one calling me everyday
just to check in and see.
She asks me every day, "How much gold did you find, Dad?"
My answer to her is always, "Not enough, love."
Got a bit riding on this season. The fifty-ounce target
is a big target for anybody.
We've got to pick up the slack big time here.
Alright, mate, that'll do it.
I'll park up. I'll go get the detector.
It's been a um, pretty bad start for us
having to go and spend another 10,000 dollars
on a generator and a few thousand on a new motor
for the concentrator that got flooded.
We really need to start finding some gold,
even just to sort of get back on target.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Aye.
That is the sound I want to hear.
Doesn't sound like rubbish.
It would mean a lot to bloody find something.
We need this, come on.
Yes!
It's gold. That's exactly what I wanted to see in here.
So that tells me that the gold is coming from the pit
back through this way as well.
It's such a small piece but it means so much.
The quick find means the new pit that Brad has opened up
could be full of nugget rich pay dirt.
I'm going down in the hole, Chris.
The reason I'm coming down here is the digger
can't actually pick up a lot of this stuff off the bottom here
so just see if there's any nuggets still sitting down here.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Ooh, that's a target.
That's a bloody good target.
Oh, first scoop!
Gotta love that.
(MACHINE BEEPS)
Oo hoo hoo!
Yeah, baby!
That's a bloody pearler piece of gold.
That is unbelievable!
What a bloody great way to finish the day.
Check this out, Christopher. What you got, buddy?
Bloody good little speci.
Hooley dooley! Aye?
Geez mate, there's some weight in it, aye?
Mate, I reckon there's about an ounce of gold in that.
Well, with that crusher down, mate, this is all coming in
very, very handy.
We've still got daylight left, mate. I'm going to keep going.
Woo hoo, let's find some more.
Well done, buddy. Yeah boy! Woo!
So I've just about got the spare coil on.
It's been one of those days today.
Haven't been finding gold and now I've just broke
a 500 dollar part of me detector.
Righto, that's all good to go now
but I don't have a spare anymore, so if I break this one, that's it.
It's all over.
In the depths of the Palmer River, it's Jacqui and Andrew's last chance
to find gold before the pair have to stock up on provisions.
Kind of want to get down to this gully
and onto that gravel where the gold
tends to like to lie.
It's just frustrating because, so far,
all I've been finding is junk targets.
I'm already deflated. I haven't even found a single nugget yet.
(MACHINE BEEPS) That's a loud signal.
Straight into the gravel.
That's always good.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Almost too loud to pinpoint.
It could be a bullet or something.
Yes! Ah, ha, ha.
Oh my God, that's huge!
Finally the drought is over,
and what a good ending to the drought that is.
This looks like it could even push about half an ounce.
You've got to have some mates.
While Jacqui is covering the higher banks,
Andrew is targeting an area
a hundred metres further down the gully
armed with his new detector coil.
It's always good to have a nice shiny new thing on.
It's even better when they make that noise.
(MACHINE BEEPS) That sounds nice.
It's there already.
Little beauty!
So I chucked that new 500 dollar coil on
and that's 40 dollars of it. I'm wearing it down already.
(MACHINE BEEPS) Aha. Another one right there.
Now at this stage I'm getting pretty confident.
Oh, get out! Seriously!
Oh, for God's sake.
Oh yes. That is the law of averages right there, hey.
You've been through a bit of a drought.
I had this coming. For sure I had this coming.
I reckon that's got to be pushing 20 grams, hey.
That's unreal.
Andy, you got a copy?
Yeah, I'm here.
Mate, I have got over an ounce
of gold in my jar.
Yeah, good one, mate. Oh, that's excellent.
The drought is over!
You ended the drought with a flood too.
We're on a seriously good run here.
Oh, stop it!
Ouch! Ah!
They're in my clothes.
Just another day on the Palmer.
Green ants. You brush up against the wrong tree.
I was just scratching the ground there.
They're so aggressive.
Green Ants are fiercely territorial,
and if their nest is threatened,
will attack in swarms.
You don't find gold on Palmer
without getting bitten by green ants.
(MACHINE BEEPS) If this is another chunk of gold
and this is how quick I'm getting onto them,
it's a really good sign for the start of our season.
There you are, you cheeky little thing.
Ha, you didn't hide for long though.
Look at it, just sitting there, loud and proud and look, it's big!
Yes!
Just plucked that one out. Got all those ones out.
If anyone asks me why I come here and why I do this, that's why.
That, right there.
Hey Bradley, beer o'clock, mate.
About that time, isn't it?
Cheers, Bud. Mate, I tell ya,
it's been a bloody tough week. Yeah.
16 hour drive, man, nearly killed me.
It was a pity you got back with a generator we couldn't use anyway.
Yeah, our wet plant was under, underwater.
I sort of did my job by going back to Perth and getting a generator.
You, all you had to do was keep an eye on the wet plant.
I was praying for rain.
You prayed for too much, mate.
Anyway out of a bad week came a good, good thing, you know.
We found a nice little pocket of gold there,
otherwise we wouldn't have had anything this week.
Absolutely.
I reckon we have a bit of a weigh up, mate.
I want to see what we got for all our bloody hard work.
Shall I go first? You go first, mate.
So what have we got here?
That's not too bad.
Let's put on what I found, eh?
That's looking much better, isn't it?
It's looking alright, isn't it?
But hang on. Hang on, there's more.
If you buy one you get one free. Check that sucker out.
That just doubled the weight.
That's a wicked speci. Look at that.
Two point six. Two point six.
So I reckon we call it two point five
because there's a bit of rock on that speci
but I think we're pretty safe with two point five, aye?
That's not bad.
I think we've salvaged the week.
The Gold Retrievers' backup plan
has taken their tally to four ounces.
Mate, that is a bloody good week. Oh yeah.
Look, it pays for the generator. Yeah.
Look, I don't think that finding nuggets
is where we're going to get to our target.
I think we really need to get that plant up and running, eh?
That's for sure, mate. Cheers, mate.
Cheers, Bud. It's been a good week, eh?
Doesn't it taste sweeter?
Righto, Jacqui, I'm going to weigh up.
See how I went for the week.
(GOLD RATTLES)
Oh, yours sounds better than mine.
No, I'm, I'm pretty happy with how the week went.
I mean. especially after a few of the setbacks
of sort of not getting onto creeks
and then getting chased out by the pigs.
Yeah, I'm just glad we stuck it out
because if we went back to town to get more supplies,
this wouldn't have happened. No.
Well, I didn't get any big nugs at all
but I got a lot of these smalls.
So...
..hopefully they all add up.
Holy crap, you dug a lot of holes.
Look at that. Dead on an ounce. Woo!
I haven't got any big nugs to show this week
but that's covered all our costs for this week,
just that pile right there.
So many nuggets in there.
Alright, dead on an ounce for me. Let's see how you went.
That's the expenses jar
so this is the profit jar.
Alright, are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready.
Check these out.
That's pretty awesome.
Three point one five ounces.
Jacqui's drought-breaking nuggets and Andrew's smaller finds
have boosted their tally to five point seven ounces.
Do you know we've got like 10 grand here, Andy?
But, we're going to have to do better
if we're going to hit 50 ounces.
We actually need to be hitting these constantly.
At least now we can go back to town, do a big shop,
and then we'll come back and go again, eh?
Four point one five ounces.
Job well done, team.
Alright, let's go get some more.
What was going to be a one day quick check
to see if there's anything there,
turned into a week's worth of work.
Well, I bet you didn't think the magic wand
was going to turn our season around, did you?
I hate those stupid sticks.
After those few cuts and only finding them little babies,
it was... All that was going through my mind
is this is costing us time.
It's costing us money.
You were about to throw it in the other day,
but you decided to give it one more push
and look what we've come up with.
And you were whinging and whining.
"Look at these little bits of gold."
Enough talking about it.
Yeah, what are we waiting for? Let's see what we got.
No way!
Look at all those nuggets.
Wow, that's amazing.
I don't know if it's all going to fit.
You're going to need a bigger set of scales, mate.
That is crazy.
Twenty-six point one two.
Oh!
And we hand dug all of them out. It's not bad, eh?
But we've still got the other one.
The biggest nugget I've ever found in me life
with the magic wand.
We're over 30 ounces, boys.
That's impressive.
That's amazing.
Pretty much a kilo of gold.
80,000 dollars sat on the table right there.
Their team's huge 80,000 dollar nugget haul
takes their season tally to over 140 ounces.
And there is more.
There is more? Mel?
Well, you know how I had a hunch about the creek line?
Yeah. It actually paid off.
You got a couple of specis.
There's like a sheet of gold on that.
That's beautiful.
That looks like reef gold.
We think we've located where the reef is.
Ooh!
So we followed this up and right above it...
Check those out.
Look at the gold sticking out of there.
More than just rocks. That's loaded.
If that's what's come out of the ground just on the nuggets,
and you've just found the source, we could be on a big winner here.
There's no way of knowing exactly how much gold
is in the quartz,
but if they've found the reef, it could lead them
to the mother lode.
If we can follow this into the ground,
we don't have to chase nuggets all over the countryside.
It's already congregated in one host rock.
We just follow this.
I think you might have just found us the next project, mate.
Let's just keep pushing forward
and see how much more days like this we can have.
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv