NARRATOR: This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
ANDREW: Have a listen to this. (METAL DETECTOR BEEPS)
Here's one. Here's one. (METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
Oh, my God. ..Jacqui and Andrew land a bounty of gold.
Nice work, mate. Yes. That's a ripper. Whoa!
But carrying a $35,000 nugget haul
could make them a target for gold thieves.
Oh, it's that car again. You hear stories about
prospectors being robbed.
Hey, how are you going? High roads.
Marcus, Linden, and Dale team up with a gold hunting mate to prospect ground,
where a multimillion dollar nugget is rumoured to have been found.
Yeah, mate, we got a pretty big target here.
This could be the big one. (METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) (CHEERING)
JACQUI: Can you feel the weight?
We put too much money into this and we've got no return.
With a debt of $250,000 hanging over them...
If there's gold in those veins, it could set us up for life.
..the gold retrievers move their operation to target a quartz reef...
(LAUGHS) Yes. Whoo!
..that could hold a fortune in gold. (LAUGHS)
That's all in the space of about ten metres. I just wanna make it rain gold.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
(WIND BLOWING)
JACQUI: We don't really have much time because
the musterers are coming in at the end of this week.
Yeah, yeah. Time's really short now.
Lease explorers Jacqui Buzetti and Andrew Leahy
have only two days left to search
the Palmer River Goldfields in northern Queensland
before a cattle muster halts their work.
ANDREW: It's a cattle station and the mustering takes precedent.
It's the most important thing on this station.
It's how they're making their money, and it won't be long and they'll be here.
So we're heading south from Cannibal Creek down to some country.
The geologists wanted us to look out on the APM.
The APM is an area earmarked by Palmerville station
for potential future mining,
as lease explorers Andrew and Jacqui have exclusive access
to hunt for gold in the area and report their findings.
Huh. Wonder who this is.
Oh, he must work for the station. Wow, he's going fast.
He's in a bit... Yeah. ..bit of a hurry.
MAN: How's it going? Good. How are you going? Good, mate.
Yeah. So what are you doing out this way?
Yeah, just getting out. All right. Yeah, mate. What about you guys?
Yeah. We're here under the permission of station owner, mate,
searching out APMs for gold. Yeah, you guys get any gold?
Oh, that doesn't really matter.
What are you doing out this way? Out here looking for gold.
Who gave you permission to come in? What's that to you?
Doesn't sound like you're supposed to be here. (BLEEP)
Yeah, all right. See you later. What's his number plate?
Right, I got his number plate.
Here. Just put it right down in there.
What the hell?
I'd say, we just ran into a poacher.
How strange. Let's just cruise on.
All right. We'll head down. Hopefully, he just keeps going.
Should we radio on or something? Actually, I don't think we should get on radio. No.
He might be able to scan. That was dodgy... That was weird.
Yeah, he was dodgy, yes.
You get plenty of shady characters that will follow you through the bush.
They'll scan the UHF stations just trying to pick up your chatter.
If they know you're on gold, they'll give it a go.
Let's just keep heading down to the south, do what we're gonna do.
We'll drop off his number plate to the rangers when we catch up with them.
The one thing that he did seem interested in is how much gold we're finding.
He did, yeah. And that's what concerns me.
After six weeks in Queensland,
hunting the rich Palmer River Goldfields...
(LAUGHING)
It's probably a 1000 bucks in my hand right there.
Whoo! Yes.
..Jacqui and Andrew are now carrying nearly $35,000 worth of gold.
Oh, Jacqui. BOTH: Check that out.
Oh, my God! That's the biggest nugget I've ever found.
Oh, my God! (LAUGHS) Oh, mate.
..including a massive 6-ounce nugget that nearly lifted them
to their 15-ounce season target.
We don't have much time left in Palmer,
so it's pretty ambitious,
but we're gonna go for an extra 15 ounces.
We've still got half a season ahead of us, so we're going to aim high.
With a new 30-ounce target, Jacqui and Andrew
now need to find more than 16 ounces before the season ends.
So we've actually had a lot more expenses on this trip
than we previously expected.
This remote country's just expensive to do everything in.
So we do actually need that extra gold.
15 ounces actually, probably wouldn't have been enough.
I might take the gold with me today, eh? Carry it with me.
Yeah. Let's lock the car and everything.
Yeah. We can't be too careful with this guy. (CAR WINDOW SQUEAKING)
Yeah, windows up.
So I think we should work both banks of this creek.
One on each side. Yeah.
We're still chasing ancient river beds a lot of the time
that used to run through these hills, and they carry a lot of gold.
If you want to hit big patches of gold,
you'll do that up on your ridges and your spurs.
As ancient rivers carrying gold from higher ground
change their course over thousands of years,
the heavier nuggets are left behind on the spurs.
Not much time left, so let's make it count.
Yeah, work it as quick as we can...
Yeah. ..and then move on and try and cover as much ground as possible.
Righto. I will grab all this gold and lock the car up. Yeah, yeah.
So, I put all my gold in my pocket and locked up the vehicle,
which isn't something I normally do out here,
but we're just going to play it safe.
We'll stay pretty close to the car.
I'll keep an eye out on Jacqui and keeping an ear out for any vehicles getting around.
Yeah, this is the one they call, "Murder Gully."
Serious? Yeah. Around 2012, a guy was shot here,
out by the old owners for trespassing.
Even though the prospector's body was never found,
a Queensland couple who owned the lease
to Palmerville Station at the time, were convicted of his murder.
Just Palmer all over, really, it's why
it hasn't been searched well,
that's why it's one of Australia's last, really unsearched goldfields.
It's probably a good spot for us to start.
I mean, we do have the edge of using these modern-day detectors,
and we don't have to worry about getting shot.
Hopefully.
You get a bit nervous when you're carrying around that much gold.
Er, yeah. It's 15 ounces.
It definitely makes you feel like you could be a potential target
for someone up to no good.
2,800km from Jacqui and Andrew in Queensland,
on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie,
are brothers, Marcus McGuire, and Linden Brownley.
Yeah, we gotta take this lighter back scheduled for maintenance,
This is gonna be down for about a week.
Work at Marcus and Linden's 200 hectare lease near Ora Banda has come to a halt.
We're halfway through the season, haven't really put a dent in that 20-ounce target.
Yeah, season's not going too well for us so far.
Er, we're at two and a half ounces. We're not breaking even, we're not making a profit.
We're actually operating at a loss, and that's not good.
One week is a long time. So what does that mean for us, bro?
We're gonna have to meet up with Dale, sort out a plan.
Probably go back and start walking again for a bit.
Three seasons ago, Marcus and Linden set out as rookies
with a plan to become professional prospectors.
All right, man. This is it. Prime, croc country right here. Yeah.
They travelled thousands of kilometres to dangerous environments...
MAN: What are you guys doing here? This is my property.
Calm down, wolf creek. Calm down, man.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPS) Bottle top. (SIGHS)
..but went weeks without finding gold.
A flattened battery. It's not gold, that's for sure.
But they persevered... How you going, guys?
..and enlisted help and training from good friend and prospecting guru, Dale Harring.
You're tuning each other out so you can work closer together.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Soon their fortunes began to turn.
She showed us some really, really good tips along the way.
Oh! Look at that. Unreal.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
No quitting here today. No, not now, bro.
That's it. Amen! (LAUGHING) Listen to that.
But this year the gold has deserted them.
So in a bid to save their failing season,
Marcus, Linden, and Dale are back on the road with their detectors.
There's talk going around social media that
a 1000-ounce nugget has been found.
You know, if that is a true story, it would be worth about $2.5 million.
Two and a half million dollars, bros.
And it's in an area where,
historically, they made some big, big gold finds.
Er, it does get the community buzzing.
The team are heading to pending grounds near Widgiemooltha,
an old gold rush town where the largest nugget in Western Australia was found.
The 1135-ounce Golden Eagle,
was dug up in 1931,
and today would be worth nearly three million Aussie dollars.
When you look at it now, it's not far. Just down the road I got that seven-ouncer.
Let's see. That ground is notorious for good gold.
Oh, my God.
(EXCLAIMS, LAUGHS) Look at that.
Last year, Marcus pulled the biggest nugget of the season
close to where they're heading. Gonna need a hand, mate.
There's something weighing me down at the moment. Oh! (BOTH LAUGHING)
(LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY)
Here we go. At over seven ounces,
it skyrocketed them $18,000 dollars closer to their target.
(LAUGHING) Well done.
It's somewhere near just on our left I think. Yeah. OK.
Prospectors will rarely give away exact locations
where they find big gold.
That way. So the trio are heading to pending ground,
which anyone can prospect,
near where the rumoured mega nugget was dug up.
Here, this looks good up here with all this quartz and that running through.
Definitely got all those indications of good gold country.
Quartz rock often contains veins of gold
formed deep underground.
Seismic activity has pushed the gold-rich quartz fluid to the surface.
As the quartz veins decompose over time,
they shed gold in the form of nuggets.
This looks like a good spot to pull up.
Yeah, this will do it. Let's get into it.
Yes, we are taking a bit of a gamble coming out here on the whim of a rumour,
but we are so far away from our target, and it's not funny.
I mean, imagine finding, like, a footy-sized nugget in the ground here somewhere.
That's a big game-changer. It changes lives.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING LOUDLY) No way.
(DETECTOR BEEPS LOUDER) All right.
Yeah, man. Only got... Only taken ten steps from the car,
(CHUCKLES) and I've already got a target.
We might have the first nugget for the day.
(DETECTOR BEEPING)
Target is in my hand. Oh, it's a little lead bullet.
(SIGHS)
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING FAINTLY)
I've got a bit of a target here.
(DETECTOR BEEPING LOUDER)
I just saw it. Little bit of bullet.
It's lead, and it sounds very much like gold when it's in the ground.
(DETECTOR BEEPING)
Er...
It's a little bit of tinfoil.
It's quite depressing.
Well, there's a lot of rubbish today. Been around everywhere.
Might have to regroup with them, see what they've got.
If they've got rubbish, I think it's time to move on.
Man, I walked everywhere. Nothing but bullets, bullets, bullets.
I reckon we move on to the next spot?
Yeah. Let's pack up and head down to where you reckon
that other pending is. OK.
We do have a lot of ground to cover. and very little time,
so we're gonna have to try and pull this off somehow.
There's that first track that we passed. We'll try that area.
How about picking somewhere where there's no rubbish? We haven't got time to waste.
The more time we spend out here, I mean, we're not working, and we're not with family.
We need to make it all worth it. It needs to be worth it. Yeah.
If we don't find gold, we may have to consider calling quits
at the end of the season.
2 00:12:08.560 -- 00:12:10.800 align:middle line:65% position:50% There's, yeah, a couple of trees up here, Mark,
that might be a bit of a tight squeeze for your bucket to get through.
Yeah, no worries, guys. I can see them.
I reckon she's gonna be a pretty tight ship looking at it. We'll see how we go.
Near Coolgardie, Western Australia,
the gold retrievers, Chris Smith and Brad McGhie,
work their 200-hectare lease, Devil's Cut.
She said it's gonna be tough.
BRAD: This operation, I mean, between Chris and myself,
we probably spent about $250,000.
All right, not a problem. You know, we've only found 12 ounces so far,
so we really need to pick up the pace.
Erm, we need earn a lot more money
than what we're making at the moment to make this viable.
CHRIS: Recently, we came across a quartz reef
that we've been looking for for a long time.
The goal is to be a millionaire.
You know, if there's gold in those veins, and it's continuous,
then it could set us up for life.
Now that we're on that vein, we're gonna, er,
try and open up along the vein.
That big loader of yours, it's gonna be of great help, mate.
This is pretty much where we want you to push down about two metres.
We've asked a good mate of ours, Mark, to come in and, er,
and help remove the topsoil, and get down to the paydirt.
Geological surveys revealed a 1.5km gold-bearing fault line
running through Brad and Chris' lease.
They've dug narrow trenches
known as Costeans across the fault line
to pinpoint the exact direction it travels.
So what I'm looking at here is you got your greenstone here, and you've got your granite here.
And then a contact zone here, which leaves a gap.
Hopefully, that's where the quartz has oozed up and brought gold with it.
Around 2.5 billion years ago,
fault lines formed when layers of greenstone, rock,
and granite collided.
Then hot, pressurised fluid
carrying golden quartz from the earth's mantle
travelled towards the surface,
cooling to become hardened quartz veins.
Say it already, buddy, is that it? (LAUGHTER)
That's got to be the biggest, eh?
A test patch confirmed they had hit
a potentially rich vein of gold. Holy dooley. Whoo.
That's awesome, man. (LAUGHTER) That's wicked, eh?
Basically, all we want to do is push this whole section out
down to that quartz vein and really have a good look at it. We'll do a three bucket wide cut...
About 25 metres long. Yeah, sounds good.
You'll do it ten times quicker, that's going to help us out heaps.
So, we'll get these bikes out of the way. Let's get into it.
I was packing up to head back to Vic, the machine was free,
so I offered myself a couple of days work for him.
Our goal this week is really to get to the end
of that quartz vein and prove it up.
If Mark can clear it and get us right down, and we can do a lot of tests.
What I'm gonna be doing is pushing the dirt aside.
It's like removing our slices of toast or Kraft cheese off the packet.
It can push about 40 tonnes. So, yeah, she moves a lot of ground.
The 30 tonne loader weighs as much as 15 standard cars.
And with a 14.7 litre turbo diesel engine,
its pushing power can strip two metres
from a 250-square metre area in just a few hours.
We almost finished this side of the half.
So, get Chris over here with his detector
and he can have a bit of a wander.
We've found some very good pieces on top, and hopefully,
from the top down to the vein which is probably two metres,
we should be able to find a few more nuggets.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
There's a signal.
I think we're down to where it should start happening,
and this is a definite signal, so...
I mean, where I'd say we're halfway to the roof,
and, you know, if you start finding bits and pieces here,
I don't care how big they are,
it's a good sign that it's shedding off that reef.
But, erm, we'll soon find out.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) It's there.
It's a definite target.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) Here we go.
All right. Here we go.
What a little nuggie.
That's a good couple of grammes.
Nice and sparky.
That's what we want. It's our first one off the reef.
Hopefully, we're going to find a lot more of these.
So, we've gone full-time this year because we put so much money into this operation,
we need to get it back.
We need to make this property pay off,
otherwise we got to pack up shop, sell off, and go back to Perth.
Is it a nugget?
Oh, yeah, it is.
That's another little fella.
It's a bit lighter than the last one, but it's still a nugget.
And that's number two on this patch.
It's probably just over a gram on it, that one,
so it's a bit smaller.
That's awesome whilst we're finding them.
And the other one was just up there, so,
almost dead in line with that, er, quartz line.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) (CHUCKLES) There's another one in there.
That sounds bigger, too.
Oh, yeah, she's in the scoop now.
Well, this will be nice if it's two.
Oh, yeah, here she comes.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) Whoa! That's a big bear.
Ugly-looking nuggets, but probably two, two and a half grammes,
maybe even three. Wow.
If this is a sign of things to come,
I think we're in for ounces, not grammes.
JACQUI: Yeah, seeing that guy in here earlier today,
really... I don't know, it got me a little bit worried
cos he's definitely not supposed to be in here.
I just got a really weird feeling off him.
Jacqui and Andrew have exclusive permission
to hunt gold on Palmerville Station in far north Queensland.
But an encounter with a potential poacher
has the duo on high alert.
ANDREW: So this is basically our last day before the mustering begins.
We haven't got time to be muffing around
or chasing up rangers or anything right now.
We've just got to concentrate on getting this gold out of the ground.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) Huh, finally.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
Oh, yeah.
It's a little nail, and it was causing a hell of a racket.
We underestimated our expenses for the trip,
so, if we don't really achieve that higher target,
we're probably gonna have a bit of issues
pushing forward in the rest of the season,
but we're gonna push ourselves and, yeah, see if we can get there.
Jacqui and Andrew have doubled
their original season target to 30 ounces,
and need to make the most of their final hours in Palmer River.
Perseverance is definitely key when looking for gold.
I know that Kitty Pluto definitely wouldn't have found a gold field
if she wasn't pushing on and working hard.
Yeah, back in 1915, in the gold rush days,
a female prospector called Kitty Pluto
discovered a gold field in Queensland on the Wenlock River.
She found this 95-ounce nugget, like, it's seriously insane.
Kitty's Nugget would be worth a quarter of a million Australian dollars
in today's money.
I would love to put my name on something like that one day.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
All right. Come on.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
Oh, look at that.
All right. That's a nice, chunky little nug, too.
That's got some weight. You got a copy, Jacq?
Yeah, mate. Yeah, I just got a nice little nug.
Probably two or three grammes, something like that. Awesome.
Whereabouts are you? I am on that little ridge, heading west from the vehicle.
I might come down there cos I'm not getting anything over here.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZES)
It's always good when they stay in the scoop.
(SIGHS) Ooh.
Perfect.
How'd you go? This is the spot.
Hey, that's a nice one. I got an all right one, too.
Wicked. Yeah, that's a good nug.
Exactly what we needed. Absolutely. (VEHICLE APPROACHING)
Oi, it's that car again.
He's stopping. It's the last thing we need when we just found gold.
I'm putting this away. Yeah, do that.
You hear stories about prospectors being robbed out here,
even being killed.
No. Great. Now he's getting out.
Oh, for God's sake.
You just can never be too careful
cos sometimes things can go really bad.
Hey, boys, we got someone up behind me.
Since it's, er, not the best...
but then a lot of people down this way.
Er, let's pull up, we're letting them pass. Roger.
In western Australia,
Marcus, Linden, and Dale, have heard on social media
about a 1000-ounce nugget find near Widgiemooltha.
He's slowing down. All right, there. Hold on.
I know that car. Oh, my! Hey! Hey!
Hey! Hey, it's Trotty.
Hey! How are you going? Marcus.
Hey, bro. Marcus. What are you doing here?
Hey, good to see you, bro. What's happenin'?
Hey, young Trotty, good to see you. (INDISTINCT CHATTERING)
We'd heard a rumour that a big one's been out here.
Oh, I heard the same thing about a rumour.
Big 1,000-ounce nugget, I heard. Three times on the radio. This is where it's been found.
All right. Might as well tag along with us.
Might as well, eh? Yeah, four on the ground, even better chances.
Let's get down, eh? I've known Trotty for years. Yeah, we used to work together.
We go prospecting every now and then when he's in town.
Let's get stuck into it. Let's get into it.
Let's all spread out, check in an hour. Yeah.
(INDISTINCT) LINDEN: No worries, let's go.
The biggest nugget I found was a 10.7 ounce nugget,
on a pending lease out towards, erm, Broad arrow.
Yeah, now, when I hit mud and I thought that it was rubbish until I held it in my hand,
but the machine just went off, eh.
I'm originally from Kalgoorlie, I've moved to Perth,
about 30-40 years ago...
but always come back.
Oh, mate, I love it, eh. More open spaces.
A lot quieter. Back out in the nature again.
DALE: We've got a lot at risk if we don't make target.
With the running cost of the machinery,
with the fuel and servicing that has to be done... (SIGHS) Rubbish.
..you know, if you're not finding that gold,
we basically could be out of pocket at the end of the season.
With the season half over, and a gold tally of only two ounces,
the trio are way off their 20-ounce target.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Oh, there it is. A nice little flat one.
I reckon it's about 0.5 a gramme or just under.
That's a good sign. One for the jar.
All you men, you got a copy?
Yeah, go on, boy.
Yeah, man, I've got a bit of a sound here.
I've dug down a bit,
but the sound's getting bigger the deeper I go. Oh.
I'll head over there right now. All right, see you when you get here.
Now we're in big gold country. I've dug a hole.
I've gone around the edges, still nothing's here.
Check this out here, eh? (SIGHS)
I've dug down that far, still nothing on the sides, but listen to this.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
(BOTH LAUGHING)
Oh, man. Get it out. Get it out. Move, move, move.
I'm gonna call those other two, what do you reckon? Yeah, get them over here.
Dale, Daryl, you got a copy?
Yeah, receiving. What's up?
Yeah, we got a pretty big target here.
We've been digging quite a fair bit. Yeah, we'll head up there.
Tell them to hurry up. This could be the big one.
2 00:24:09.080 -- 00:24:11.760 align:middle line:90% position:50% MARK: Hey, Chris, Brad, come in, let's have a quick chat.
Just a bit concerned about the amount of clouds in the bottom of this floor.
Yeah, we seemed to have a bit of a holdup at the moment
with why the machine's not pushing as well as what we were hoping.
The bucket itself tends to want to skid across the clay rather than bite in.
Fingers crossed, we haven't got 6ft of it,
but the machine's working pretty hard.
At the Devil's Cut lease in Western Australia,
the gold retrievers have enlisted fellow prospector Mark,
and his 30 tonne loader, to dig down to a quartz vein
that may hold rich quantities of gold.
Mark's heading off this afternoon,
he's going back to see his family in Vic.
Yeah, we really need him to get down to the level we need to be at.
So, he's only got a couple of hours to go. It's a bit stressful.
Er, we got to get in to put a bit of a costean
in the bottom of the floor of the haul.
It's got to be a lot quicker to have a look at the depths of the clay,
rather than trying to open up a three metre or nine metre cut with the loader.
Mark's got to head off, so we've only got the use of his loader for today,
so if we don't get this done, then we are gonna be in a bit of trouble.
Yeah, that's levelling out there, mate. That's good.
Yeah, that doesn't seem too bad, eh.
So obviously, there's another...what?
What do you reckon it'll be? A foot and a half of clay.
Yeah, we should be able to get down to that.
Should breach it by about 3:00 today, I hope.
I'm actually heading home,
er, to see the family, haven't seen 'em for ten weeks.
So, yeah, let's get digging.
It's hard being away from family.
You know, we're out here doing something
to try and shore up the future for us as well,
so there's a reason we're here.
This is my investment, I'm doing this for the family.
Brad is digging another costean
to see if the fault line continues through their lease.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
Oh. That's a good signal.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING RAPIDLY) That's a really good signal now, eh.
That's right where that quartz is, too.
That's exactly where that quartz vein's running.
So, I'll chip that out of the wall, we'll have a look.
It's right over here where this quartz is.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
That signal's gone, so I've dropped it somewhere.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Oh. That's huge.
That's a big signal.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Ooh.
That's in the scoop. That's a massive signal.
Oh. (LAUGHS) Yes!
Whoo! Oh, that's unbelievable.
Mate, that's gotta be... Man, that's probably an ounce.
That's like a week's wages there. That's, erm...
I'm speechless. I'm shaking. I'm over the moon with that, so.
Hey, Chris, got a copy? Yeah, go ahead.
Hey, mate, get over here, man. I've got something to show you.
Hope you didn't make me run for nothing. Check this out.
Holy dooley! Man, that's a monster.
It was right in that wall where that quartz is coming down.
Wow. That's unreal, isn't it?
I reckon that's good. What have you got? I've got something to show you, pal.
Here comes, son. Eat your heart out. Boy, you're kidding me.
Out of where, where you push it? Yeah. (LAUGHING)
(LAUGHING)
Holy crap! That's all in the space of about ten metres.
You're kidding me. No. (BOTH LAUGHING)
Mate, that is awesome. On the money.
That is so good. Fistfuls of gold.
I've never seen anything like it. And let's hope it continues,
because we definitely need it.
Er, I just want to make it rain gold.
Woo-hoo! Yeah, boy!
(MAN SPEAKING)
ANDREW: No, mate. Just junk here, eh.
In far north Queensland,
a potential poacher has turned up on gold ground
that only Jacqui and Andrew have access to explore.
I think it's about time you moved on, mate.
(MAN SPEAKING)
Yeah, I'm gonna give the Rangers a call, see what they reckon.
I'll send them your way.
We're not leaving here until we get this gold out of the ground either.
He's creeping me out big time.
We'll just stick together, er, keep the gold on us,
keep the car locked. There's not much else we can do.
I think he must have been listening to our radio conversation as well,
cos he knew we were pretty excited about what we're doing.
(DETECTOR STATIC) We're already under the pump because the muster is starting soon.
But now this just adds a whole new level of pressure
to get this gold out of the ground as soon as possible.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Here it is. Here's another little nugget, too.
Excellent.
It's probably around 20 bucks worth of gold, but we're on a patch.
This is fantastic, great for our report.
In their new role as lease explorers,
Andrew and Jacqui are reporting the GPS marks of any gold found
to the Palmerville Station owners.
It's gonna look great for us. Plus, it's going to put some gold in our pockets.
This is undetected ground, and there's gold all through it.
I mean, this is every prospector's dream.
Yes! Another one.
Whew.
Andy, got another one!
Going to need a bigger bottle, mate. Listen to this.
(EXCLAIMS) Yes! You reckon that's good? Have a listen to this.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) Here's one. Here's one.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Here's one. Hold on. Oh, my God.
They are all through it. Mate, give me your kick, let's get these out.
Yeah, pretty exciting run to a hell of a patch here.
There's just gold coming off this little ridge, left, right and centre.
Hey, have a listen. (METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
That sounds like a good target.
Get into it. Get it out. (LAUGHS)
That's a good sign getting that deep.
This could be a good nugget, this one. (SIGHS)
(PANTING)
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
She's there. Awesome.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Listen to it. It's screaming its head off.
(LAUGHING) Oh, yeah, look at that one. Yes!
Nice work, mate. Yes! That's a ripper. Whoo!
Yes! That's a good nugget. Yes!
Feel the weight of that.
Yeah. That's a good 20 grammes or so, I reckon. Yes!
That's the biggest nugget of the pack, for sure. Whoo!
Mate, that's the biggest nugget of my trip, by the looks of it.
Yeah. Nice work, mate. (LAUGHING) What a top off to a good patch.
Oh, that's gorgeous, isn't it?
It's a $1,600 nugget,
adding to an already rich haul of gold.
Look at that jar! Hey. My God, you're on fire.
This is the best. It's so good. (LAUGHS)
This has been a hell of a patch, isn't it?
Every prospector dreams of this sort of thing,
and we're right in the middle of it.
Despite everything that went on with this bloke stalking us on this patch,
it's just been our biggest haul yet.
It's absolutely incredible.
But with this guy hanging around, it's a lot of added pressure
to get all this gold out of the ground.
I think we're just gonna have to push on into the night, get the head torches out,
cos I'll be damned if he's coming in here and taking it.
If need be, get out at first light tomorrow morning and start again.
Andy, got another one.
Nearly 3,000km west on the other side of Australia...
Listen to that. (METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) That's a big one.
Your heart starts racing thinking maybe we hit something.
It's like it's just straight underneath.
These thoughts running through your mind, thinking,
"What am I gonna do if it is?"
..a deep target has Marcus, Linden, Dale and prospecting mate, Trott,
hoping they've found a massive nugget.
TROTTY: More digging. Oh, listen in. Hey! DALE: Oh, listen to that.
LINDEN: If I found a 1000 ounce nugget, I'd support my family.
And not only family you could look after, but definitely your community.
That would be something right in my heart.
Another check, dig her a little out, scrape her out.
Whew.
MARCUS: She's there. And she's there. Yeah.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Yeah, she's there. DALE: Move your picks.
There you go. Just in... Over here.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
Ah, I found it. Be careful.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Whoa! (ALL EXCLAIM)
Can you feel the weight?
(EXHALES)
Aw, man! You're kidding me. Aw!
Serious?
Ends up being an old bolt.
TROTTY: All I know, it was a good, big target. Big noise, eh.
Yeah, just a pity it wasn't gold.
Come on, mate. You've done well. That's just something
you just got to roll with in the prospecting game.
You know, you've got to pick yourself up,
dust the crap off, and keep going again.
(DETECTOR STATIC) Ooh. Yeah, that's a target. That's a target.
This could be gold, man. Right in the middle of all this quartz.
Oh.
It's in my hand.
Well, it could be in...
Look at that! It's in the quartz.
Specie, old specimen.
Gold caught up in the quartz.
Oh, that will probably be a little 0.5 of a gramme.
A good indication gold's around. TROTTY: Hey, Marcus.
Listen, I've got to go back into town, eh.
Yeah? Yeah. Safe trip back.
Push on, brother. Yeah. Keep it low. Look after yourself. Yep. I will. See you. All right.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Definitely got it this time.
And there she is.
Maybe just under half a gramme. 30, 40 bucks.
It's not the monster nugget, but, you know, it adds to the tally.
But $40 nuggets aren't going to get the trio
much closer to their 20-ounce season target.
LINDEN: We are at a critical point,
if we don't find gold, then, you know,
what's the use of being out here?
We're gonna have to really question whether or not we're gonna continue.
2 00:34:50.000 -- 00:34:53.760 align:middle line:90% position:50% CHRIS: If there's a lot of gold in this quartz, what are your thoughts on, er,
this turning into a hard rock operation, mate?
Mate, we are so far behind the 8-ball still,
we're chasing nuggets, man.
That's all I'm concerning at the moment.
The gold retrievers have hit a rich patch of nuggets
along the quartz vein on their Devil's Cut lease.
The gold that's bound up in this quartz,
we're starting to find some good signs in there,
and it might be worth kilos instead of ounces, mate.
Hard rock mining, man, there's huge amounts of money involved in that.
You've got to get all the equipment, you got to process it,
the whole lot matters. It's a huge operation.
Hard rock mining involves crushing the quartz down
to material small enough
to process through wet plant machinery
to extract the fine gold embedded in it.
It'd be nice to be able to afford to do something like that.
We just can't, mate. We put so much money into this,
erm, and we've got no return so far,
only just starting to get returns now.
If you can't afford to do it, you can't afford to do it, simple as that.
Chris is a bit of a dreamer, he likes to look into the future
and think that everything will be perfect. I'm more of a realist.
If you start over capitalising, you're gonna go backwards very quickly, and you'll go broke.
And it's not just me that it affects,
it affects the whole family and my kids' futures.
I understand where he's coming from.
It's a lot of expenditure to take away from the families.
You know, we still got bills to pay, but I'm more of an optimist.
You know, I can see the pie in the sky,
Here's Marco. I reckon we're done, mate.
That's about level, innit? Yeah. That's where we want to go.
That's two weeks work for us. Yeah, exactly.
Hey, buddy, thank you very much for your time.
And, er, we'll catch you next time, eh.
I'm happy you're happy. If you got the ground exposed as you want,
erm, I'm done.
We'll probably have to do a little bit more digging ourselves,
but it's easy digging now,
and we'll go down and see if we can chase this quartz vein.
What we're gonna do is take out some samples,
do a bit of testing and see if there's any gold in it.
Crush a bit of this stuff up.
The quartz vein that we found, we're hoping for ten grammes per tonne.
To process the thousands of tonnes of potential gold-rich quartz,
Brad and Chris will have to pay for the crushing and extraction
to be done at a processing plant.
CHRIS: We need to make at least six to eight grammes per tonne,
to make it viable for us.
So I haven't dollied it up enough to get through the crusher.
The expenses of processing is gonna cost us,
maybe four-five grammes per tonne.
What we want to do is we want to crush the ore.
So, a lot of these rocks are too big to get in the crusher,
so I'm gonna dolly pot them up, which is, er, just a big smashing hammer.
I'm gonna break 'em up small enough to get 'em into the crusher,
which will crush them down to, like, talcum powder. (CRUSHER GRINDING)
We're doing approximately ten kilos of crushing.
If we find gold in there,
we're hoping two times that by 100,
to see how many grammes per tonne.
And if it comes out at over ten grammes per tonne,
that would be amazing.
When you're putting 100,000 tonnes of ore in to be processed,
you know, there's possibly millions of dollars.
So this is 10 kilos, is it? It is. All right.
I can see it already. You can see it already. That look pretty good.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
That's sensational. That's amazing, man.
Look at that for a tail. Yeah. I honestly didn't believe that we're gonna get
that much gold there. That's incredible. That's at ten kilo.
We did ten kilo. Yeah. And at down to this,
and, I reckon we're over 0.1 of a gramme.
So, times that by 100, there's well over ten grammes.
Yeah, unbelievable. I really didn't...
That's just blowing me away. Sensational.
JACQUI: Let's do this. ANDREW: Yeah. Last weigh in on the Palmer.
It's gonna be a good one. By the feels of this jar. It's full.
Jacqui and Andrew's final days
on the legendary Palmer River Gold Fields
have seen them uncover a bumper patch of gold
that could get them to their new 30-ounce target.
Yep, chuck her on.
I've been waiting for this. Look at that haul.
That's over seven. Holy crap.
9.79 ounces of gold.
This is gonna take us over ten, mate... Yeah, that's wicked. ..for sure.
10.5. Whoo! BOTH: Ten and a half ounces. (LAUGHING)
Look at that. That's crazy, mate.
That's like 25 grands worth of gold sitting there.
Andy, this is seriously the best gold season, ever. I know.
Halfway through their season,
and the duo have tallied $60,000,
leaving them only six ounces short of their new 30-ounce target.
Can't stop looking at it now. That's just awesome.
Me, too. I'm just smiling looking at it.
Far out, I'm gonna miss this place so much. Yeah, so am I.
The river of gold has been good to us. So good.
Put that report together and send it off.
And hopefully, we get an invite again next year.
I hope so. Yeah, me too. Fingers and toes crossed. This is unreal.
I'm actually really sad our time here at Palmerville has come to an end.
It's really surprised me.
This place has definitely taken a piece of my heart
that I probably won't be taking home with me.
It's a very special place.
Whoa. Hey, man.
Now that rumour, eh? Looking for a 1000-ounce nugget,
and what? Nothing. Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Serves us right coming out here.
Well, we tried. It's all we can do.
Dale, Marcus and Linden gambled and lost
on finding big nuggets in a desperate bid
to boost their lagging gold tally.
Chuck it on the old boy, see if we start pushing a few numbers on there.
I'm just gonna chuck these little nuggets in first. BOTH: "0.03."
That's about 0.9 of a gramme. Mm-hm. Yeah.
And what about those pessies?
"0.046."
About a gramme of gold in the quartz alone.
So that would take it to 1.9 altogether, on a gramme.
Yeah, 1.9 grammes, all up. Yeah.
It's a mere $150 to their tally,
leaving the trio 17.5 ounces from their season target,
and further in the red.
We've just fallen short of two grammes of gold.
If we were to put that into dollars and cents,
that's just covering fuel...
for one of the vehicles, not even food.
Next week, we'll have that loader back.
We'll be back on our lease.
We need to start pushing pads again.
We just really need to get on some good gold ground. Yeah.
Let's get it stuck into it. All right, let's go.
Let's go.
(LAUGHS)
Whoo-hoo.
Happy days. Yeah, boy.
Gold retrievers Brad and Chris
are not even halfway to their target of 30 ounces.
They need the nuggets they found this week
to get them on track for the second half of the season.
Let's have a weigh-out, man. I'm excited. (LAUGHS)
This is gonna be awesome. You first, buddy.
All right. The big boy.
Whoo-hoo. Over an ounce, that's all right. (LAUGHS)
Yeah, boy. And that's only one.
All right. Are you ready? Yeah.
(CHUCKLES) Yeah, boy!
Eh? Eh? (LAUGHS) Eh. What do you got?
Yeah. (LAUGHS) Woo-hoo!
Yeah, boy!
Eleven ounces. Mate! That is awesome. That is unbelievable.
In one week, Brad and Chris have banked nearly $28,000,
and almost double their tally,
putting them in sight of their season target.
And I mean, we've still got so much more to go.
Who knows how much more is in there.
I really want to pump some money back into looking after my family,
and have something for the future for them.
I'm gonna get a haircut, a convertible, and... (WHISTLES)
Oh, love and light. (LAUGHS)
It's going to be nice to ring the wife and kids
and let them know what we found this week.
It's been a long time coming, and it's been a lot of hard work to get there.
So, yeah, I'm looking forward to let them know
that we're starting to pay some bills.
Oi, let's go and have a beer, mate. Yeah. Woo-hoo-hoo.
Let's do it, man. Awesome, Brad.
Yeah, baby!
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