NARRATOR: This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
We're literally a stone throw
from where a 1,700 ounce nugget had been found.
The Poseidon Crew finally start digging
the legendary Catto's Paddock.
The 795 ounce Kum Tow. (EXCLAIMS) You're right.
Just the gold alone will be worth nearly two million dollars. Yeah.
RUSSELL: How are we looking? MAN: No good, Russell.
How are you going? Desperate for gold... Oh, bullets.
..Shane and Russell endure the snake ridden wilderness
of Western Australia's Pilbara.
Imagine that, a pocket full of gold and you end up dead by a snake.
And their persistence delivers one of their biggest nuggets this season. (EXCLAIMING)
That's a nugget.
And the Gold Timers struggle... Bro, this isn't starting. I've got no power.
..to keep a borrowed dry blower running...
If we broke this thing... We don't have 40 grand.
..knowing it's their only shot... I'm a bit stressed at the moment
..at a payday. Come on, gold, where are you?
Oh! Oh, look, there's a couple. (LAUGHING)
Cheers.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
What do you reckon, Cayde? Oh, I'm excited. Right.
This ground has got some of the richest nugget producing ground
anywhere on the planet, mate. I'm happy to be there to see it.
In the Golden Triangle of Central Victoria,
the Poseidon Crew, boss, Brent Shannon,
and right hand man, Ethan West,
have been joined for the day by Brent's 15-year-old son, Cayden.
Looks like your dad's already here, Eth.
And Ethan's father, Paul... It does, mate. Must be keen as mustard.
..is also here to lend a hand.
You know, there's three generations of us out here now, so, loving it.
They've finally been given the green light,
to start mining the legendary Catto's paddock.
We've got to do this, Pop. It's a privilege to dig this ground.
Give it the respect it deserves. Yeah. And guess what,
we just might get rewarded with something special here.
We might find a 1,000oz nugget here...
Yeah. ..something that hasn't been done for over 100 years.
And you're not getting help. No way.
Only at day. He only gets out at day.
He probably goes back to school.
He wants to get a bigger nugget than Pop, eh? (LAUGHTER)
BRENT: Well, there's every chance he might a bigger one, so. Oh, hope so.
The Catto family have owned this paddock for over 150 years,
and if I can land a 1,000oz-plus nugget,
and that's what I'm dreaming of doing,
it'll go a long way for all of us.
Hi, Matt. Brent, how are you? Good.
Glad to be here today, mate. It's good to have you here.
Ethan. This is Ethan. Hello, mate.
Matt, Matt Catto. Yeah, cool. All right.
On the first day of digging the hallowed ground
in over 150 years,
Brent's gathered three generations of the Catto family,
to mark the historic occasion.
So... hey, you up, Dad?
Jeff... Hi, Brent. Pleased to meet you. Brent.
I am so pleased to have yous all here today.
It's a special moment for all of us.
All we can hope, guys, is that we find some good gold here.
It was your grandfather... Yeah. ..that owned this property originally. Yes.
Right. This is a nugget replica that's come from this very paddock. Yeah.
This is a 249oz nugget called "The Needful". Yes.
Found at Catto's Paddock, 1871.
If this nugget was found today, it would be worth over $600,000.
And the 795oz Kum Tow.
Just the gold alone will be worth nearly two million dollars.
And to mention "The Precious," which was 1,700oz... Yeah.
..double the size of this... Yeah. ..I think we're in a massive chance to land something special here.
Well, this is the area... Yeah.
..which is the richest gold field in the world. Yeah.
And over a tonne of gold come off this property alone.
That's what they say. Yeah.
In the late 1800s,
this was the epicentre of the Victorian gold rush,
with more than 80 million dollars
being found on this 50,000 square metre farmland lease.
Brent is banking on his modern machinery and technology
to fast-track his team's season tally.
We better get cracking to make a start.
I would love for you to stick around. That's why you come out here.
But I want to push off a bit of dirt, and I want you to be here, to actually see
the start of the re-mining of Catto's Paddock once again. Yeah.
Beautiful.
I'm kind of going to meet Dad for letting me come out...
cos Catto's Paddock is such a big, you know, name.
I can't believe we're actually about to start digging this paddock.
I've been dreaming about this moment for a long time,
and now that dream is actually going to become reality.
This is an historic moment today.
We're about to strike a blow in the ground.
MATT: We got the right man for the job, anyway. He's that passionate about it.
He knows more about the paddock than we do, so. That's for sure.
What we're gonna do now is push off all the grass.
Once we get that grass off a bit, we're ready to take the surface.
It's gotta be be interesting to see if there's gonna be any gold just under the surface or not.
All right, let's go and get some detectors.
He's looking pretty happy with himself already.
He just pushed a bit off the top so, who knows what he's found.
I'll be shocked if there's no gold left here.
I wouldn't be here if I didn't think there's gold.
But there's always that risk.
It's not the first licence that I've actually really
had high hopes for has let me down.
Well, this is a historic moment, folks.
Doing something that hasn't been done right in this paddock for over 150 years or thereabouts.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
The Catto family will get a generous share
of any big nugget finds.
MATT: No pressure. No pressure, eh.
PAUL: We call him Mr. Gold.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING)
Just try to get in there. No pressure. (LAUGHTER)
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) If this is gold...
you're gonna have to stay here with us everyday,
and just say, "No pressure. No pressure."
(EXCLAIMS)
PAUL: Definitely getting the signal. Yeah.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) ETHAN: Yeah, it's a strong signal.
A .22 bullet.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) But it's not all bad.
You want to know what it is? .22, I reckon.
It's a bit of gold. PAUL: Straight away.
It's in there. We'll get him. Here you go.
(EXCLAIMS) Yeah, don't back down. Look at that, sitting in that bottom material.
Look at that stuff there. What a start, eh?
It's a bit of a custom to give the land owners the first bit I find, so...
How's that, eh? Thank you.
We couldn't be happier. Thanks, mate, I appreciate it.
You'll have to go deeper for the bigger ones. (LAUGHTER)
So you prefer the bigger ones.
I'm really starting to feel the pressure now building
because the Cattos have got high expectations.
They didn't give this paddock up easy
for the last, you know, 150 years
since the old-timers have been here, to anyone else,
because they probably know what may be left under that ground.
And so, I'm feeling the pressure
cos it's a privilege to mine this ground.
SHANE: Well, we're here. Well, we're here.
Have a look at the countryside. Absolutely stunning.
We got a great chance of finding gold out here. Yeah, I know. We want big gold.
I think we were about 16 ounces behind.
We've paid for fuel. That's about it.
We're breathing down the barrel.
Shane Calegari and Russell Nash are near Nullagine
in the Pilbara district,
more than halfway into a season-long expedition,
hunting gold in some of Western Australia's
most remote wilderness.
We're a mile off season target at the moment, so things are getting pretty tough.
And it's not like I can send a heap of money home at the moment, because there ain't any.
OK, Russell, where are we going? Well, this is Dusty's old lease here.
We got an old friend, Dusty, and he's got a few tenements around the place,
and he's given Shane and I a chance at finding some gold there.
Just park me under the shade there, brother. I'm still at that.
So, a couple of kids, just took out mortgages.
My life's expensive so, I can't come up here for nothing.
It's not for the play money, it's for the good money.
The duo will be braving the Pilbara's 40-plus degree Celsius summer temperatures.
Dusty's secret corner, is a 200 hectare lease
located on the banks of the Nullagine River.
All I really know is it's been renowned
for large gold. I've seen it...
I've actually held some of it, and it's big gold.
There's gold in the hills here. Where is it going to come to?
As lowest point, and this is it.
Creek bed comes through here, and joins up to the main river line.
His lease is all back up, just on the hill there so,
if it shed, it shed down here, isn't it?
In the Pilbara region, gold deposits have been pushed up
as hills and mountains formed through the collision of the Earth's plates.
As the hills eroded over millions of years,
some of the heavier gold is washed down from the ridge lines
and collects in gullies and waterways below.
I believe all the fine gold would have washed to the creek bed,
and maybe I'll find some larger pieces of the gold.
But the Pilbara also holds the world's largest reserves of iron ore,
making it some of the most mineralised and difficult ground to detect for gold.
Oh, it's gold.
It's noisy.
I've got a signal here, so it's either ironstone
or a bit of steel in the bottom of the creek bed, or it's gold.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Don't know.
Oh, it's a big one. It's a great sign, if something that big can be washed down,
that means a bit of gold that big can be washed down as well.
That's out.
Please.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Just a hot rock, full of ironstone.
Iron ore, that's what that is.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
There's a sound here, but this sound is a little bit different.
It could be a bullet shell or something like that, or a piece of brass.
But you always gotta check. You never know, you know.
That's not there.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) It's still there.
And I'm digging about that deep. Might be a big piece of something.
Right, this could be the next 30-0.
But inside is a beer can.
Well, it sure ain't gold, brother.
This is the heartbreaker.
I dug a hole here 400 deep with a scoop,
in a hot day, sweating myself to death
to find it's a dirty old can,
and the worst thing about it it's empty.
(CHUCKLES)
I don't know, Russell, we've had a good journey so far,
but the gold hasn't been too promising.
OK. What have made so far? Four and a half ounces.
Four and a half ounces? That's over ten grand. Yeah. But that's...
I mean, nobody put a gun at our head and said we had to do it.
No. I mean, you've got bills to pay. I understand that.
I'd like to leave a little bit more gold to my grandkids.
Just think we're still in the game.
Well, tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is another day.
I got a nice feed cooking up here. We've got a wonderful camp.
We'll have a good night's sleep here, and away we go. (BIRDS CHIRP)
Up at sunrise? Yep.
2 00:11:54.880 -- 00:11:57.560 align:middle line:90% position:50% Boys. All right. Here we are, mate. Ground zero.
TURBO: Yeah, this is it. This is our little patch, mate. Yeah.
Obviously, we got a few piles here to dry blow.
You've done a bit of work already. You've got a lot of dirt to go through.
Yeah, we've had a bit of luck dry blowing that area down there.
Yeah, obviously we need to dry blow a bit more. Yeah, you got a bit to do.
But we had a real ridge that was zoned down here,
so we're really, really steady now.
We're getting some serious tonnes through, man. Yeah. This is a...big step up for us.
In Kookynie, Western Australia,
the Gold Timers, Rob Dale and Rob Linton, a.k.a Turbo,
want to hire a 30-tonne dry blower from Nathan,
a neighbouring miner.
So you a got a bit of dirt to blow? Yeah, we need to, erm,
sort of rehab it all cos, yeah, we've sort of come to our limit.
Rob and Turbo have cleared the maximum permitted area
for their 300-hectare lease,
and stockpiled 1,000 tonnes of pushed-up dirt
that showed signs of containing lots of fine gold.
That's another one, bro. Still coming up though, bro.
Little over half a gramme. This is what the dry blower just ate up.
Another target, bro. Whoo.
Oh, I'm big on this dry blower. Ah!
Now they need to negotiate a percentage
for the use of Nathan's dry blower.
I don't know what you're thinking. (LAUGHS)
I'll start at 30 percent. Thirty? Oh.
Twenty. Twenty. Yeah. (SIGHS) Well, I'll meet you in the middle. Yeah, meet you in the middle.
25 percent. All right. I'm happy with that. Yeah.
I think we can make something out of that. Yeah.
One condition, boys. If you break it, you own it.
Yeah, OK. I mean, 40 grand. Yeah. Forty grand?
Don't break it. Don't run into the loader, back into it.
I will look after, mate. Yeah. We'll be all right.
Time is money, boys. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, mate. Get to blowing that dirt.
Yeah, this gold game is tough, you know,
and we're not finding as much gold as we'd like.
And it gets harder every season cos of the gold.
We're not making a fortune out here,
we're only make enough money to keep this going just,
erm, and make some time with our kids and stuff.
Only a quarter of the way to their target,
and with time running out... It's pretty good, mate.
..they now have to hand over 25 percent of their gold take this week
to pay for the dry blower.
Third season in, it's do or die.
We're really hoping that something's really gonna pay off for us this time around.
Pretty good there, eh? All right, let's chuck these wheels up, eh. Yeah.
In this semi-arid environment, with no reliable sources of water,
dry blowing is the only way to separate the fine gold
from the red dirt and dust.
We have power!
The blower is powered by a 10 horsepower portable generator.
All right, I'll give you a quick rundown on how to start it up and shut it down.
The brain of the machine's in here. Yeah. Start to get the genny on.
The old green's all good. Start up the oversize conveyor...
Yeah, cool. Cool.
Mate, reckons it runs, you know, 20 to 30 tonne an hour.
We know there's gold in here and we're gonna make some money.
Fingers crossed. Bang! We're getting heaps of gold.
(ENGINE STARTS)
The dry blower hopper filters out larger rocks
and feeds the gold bearing dirt into the riffle trays,
where compressed air and vibrations will blow the lighter material out,
leaving the heavier gold trapped in the riffles.
We are really going to move a lot of tonnes with this machine.
So, you move a lot of tonnes, and you make a lot of gold.
Yeah, everything's running real, erm...
Fingers crossed, we have no breakdowns,
have a look in a couple hours, see if we've got any gold in the trays.
We thought of doing a bit of a pan sample there,
and, erm, see what comes with it, so, yeah.
The only way to know if the dry blower is running properly...
All right. That's it. ..is to sample some of the concentrate...
Shut the genny off. ..and look for traces of gold.
We're just gonna take a scoop out of the top riffle,
make sure we're catching, make sure we're not running too fast.
That's really what we want to know right now.
Go.
You got a pan done, eh? Yeah, man.
Little bit of a sample out of, er, that top riffle. I'm a bit excited.
We're all excited, mate.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
Look at that. Ah. Oh, we got some colour.
All right, man. Let's take the powder out.
Look at that. That's what we want. Well, we're on the money.
The specks of gold weigh just a couple of grammes,
but a full week of consistent dry blowing...
Fire her up, mate. Fire her up.
..should bring them at least a two ounce, $5,000 payday.
I'm gonna get out of here now. The boys got it all running, they're getting gold,
so if they don't break it, it'll be all good.
Yeah, look, Nate's gone now. It's all in our hands.
Pretty sure I've got a good understanding of what's going on.
Oh, it's exciting. Everything going to plan so far.
We haven't hit nothing, that's a good thing.
We're absolutely pumping. We're running about 30 tonne an hour at the moment, but...
We've got a weather system coming this way.
If it turns in, this whole trip would be over.
No, I really hope it's not gonna rain. If it rains...
No point of having a dry blower here, cos all the ground's gonna be wet.
Rain will turn the paydirt to mud, choking the dry blower,
and putting an end to the Gold Timers' operation
for days, if not weeks.
It just drops, it doesn't get any worse, so, we just...
Yeah, we need to keep dry dirt, without that dry dirt we're stuck.
Oh, man. This is not looking good.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
SHANE: I just want to find a piece, not the dirty old can.
Well, if we just get higher up the ground... Yep.
..we'll try and find a ridge and get up there, and that's where we'll work from.
OK. I'm total agreeing to that.
I don t like being in the river bed, there's too much material.
So we work our way up the creek, and we'll see what we can find.
In Western Australia, after failing to find gold
in the dried up Nullagine River,
Shane and Russell are switching their hunt
to the surrounding hills.
Make sure the hand brakes are nice and tight. (HAND BRAKES ENGAGING)
This is exciting.
Oh, getting my weary old body up here.
It looks pretty impressive, doesn't it? Stunning.
I'll be quite honest with you,
there wouldn't have been many people who get up here.
Not too many as bright as us, is there?
Well, Russell, let's go get our detectors out and do our thing.
I'm gonna concentrate on that there,
and I'll walk all the way down to the creek bed.
I might go for a walk across the top there.
Yeah, you go for the bit higher than me. You're a shy younger.
Hopefully, we can find some gold and get back on the board. But, erm... We need it.
I'm not making money at home, so it's pretty hard on the wife and the kids,
but end of the day, I'm doing this for them. I'm trying to make it better for them.
If we can stumble on a patch,
and I've heard of guys getting two kilos from a patch, I mean...
that's a big, that's a life changer, that is. That's a couple $100,000.
You got your... (METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
I've got a signal just in this rock.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Well, that's a strong signal, but none of these other ones are hot, just that one.
I'll give it a hit and see how we go.
Hot rocks are stones that can contain gold...
Come on. ..and often have dense enough concentrations of iron minerals
to register as a metal to a detector.
I hit the ironstone on this corner here, so it might just be that.
You can see there, the tinge down the side there, that's ironstone.
I was hoping that was gonna be gold. It would have been a nice specimen, that one.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Sure, still there. Wonder how deep it is.
At least in plumbing I get paid to move soil. Here I get nothing.
Just gotta clean this out a bit better.
It's something very tiny.
I can't even see it. Look how tiny that is.
I don't think it's gold, it's a bit of metal.
I'm gonna put that in my pocket.
So, that's another heartbreak. (METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) That's a different signal.
That's a good signal. That's nice and strong and sharp.
Please be gold. Please be gold.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING) Here we go. Come on.
Yeah. (EXCLAIMS)
A lump of lead, bullet. That's an old .22 calibre.
That could have been 50 years ago. Could have been 70 years ago.
I had a very, very disappointing day.
I just didn't find any gold, and I thought there wouldn't be much other material here,
but it's riddled with bullets and bits of metal and all sorts,
so, been very disappointing.
How are we looking?
No good, Russell.
How are you going? Huh... That's it. Bullets.
Yeah, well, I'm in the same position.
No gold. We're off.
OK, we gave this a red hot go anyway.
It's definitely no good for our present target,
and no good for our morale, and it's getting hotter,
and it's not getting any easier.
2 00:21:03.400 -- 00:21:05.240 align:middle line:90% position:50% ETHAN: Er, Brent's on the dozer.
I'm pushing all the top soil up into heaps.
We've got an area here that we can start digging out our holes.
Bringing them up and out within that basically,
hopefully we get two peds going.
In Victoria, The Poseidon Crew have started mining
the Catto family's pastoral lease,
the first time it's been done in 150 years.
Normally, we'd push off a bit more ground,
but right now I want to find out what the bottom is like
and start pulling out some chunks of gold.
This unique paddock once held some of the biggest nuggets
ever found in Australia.
Well, this is our first bucket going in the truck, mate.
That's it. Perfect. Always, bud.
Keep coming, mate. Keep coming.
Yeah, that'll do. You reached.
This is a big moment. It is, mate. It is.
It'll be even better if we get something out of it.
Brent and Ethan are separating the less promising top soil
from the gold-bearing levels of gravel and clay
sitting just above the bedrock bottom
where most of the big nuggets were found.
It's the bedrock where the gravel's hit the bedrock.
We are literally a stone throw
from where a 1,700 ounce nugget had been found.
I want to get to the bottom around 12ft deep,
to the top of the bedrock. That's where they found the nuggets.
I just want to get down there and really get as much gold on the scale
before the end of the season. Cos time is running out.
Hey, Eth. Yeah, mate, take that load, Eth.
Yeah, right. How's the ground looking like?
They've absolutely smashed this ground most places,
but it looks like there's a little bit of virgin gravel they've actually left here.
I'm gonna jump out and have a look, Brent.
Look at that. Do you see that?
That orange stuff is actually red gravels and clays that haven't been turned over.
That's all we know. That's half encouraging.
That is, cos it's the first dig and they've left little patches like that.
If I leave little patches like this, exactly, Eth.
Yes, we might dig for days with nothing... I know.
I only have to leave a patch like that and we could find a nugget...like that.
Well, as you can see, that rock,
that rock could be... Could be a nugget.
Anyway, it's encouraging. It'll be fine.
What we're doing in this ground which we don't normally do is,
we're detecting everything, from top to bottom.
We have to take it all out and detect it because there could be gold,
two foot off the bottom, or it could be ten feet off the bottom.
We don't know, and we're not gonna take that risk.
We're running two peds...
the bottom and the top, and I'm doing the top.
I don't expect to find much here, but...
you never know what the Old Timers has left.
I've just jumped on this ped now,
just because we're running a little bit behind time basically,
that way, Brent can still continue to dump all the top sub soils out.
We haven't got much time left this season to reach targets,
so now it's just a matter of getting it up.
Digging done to actually start to rack up some gold on the scales.
You just never know though, in this ground.
This is a big elephant, nugget country here.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Brent, I've got a nice little sound here, mate.
Right, yeah, I'll come out and have a listen.
(DETECTOR BUZZING) Well, that's not too bad.
I've scraped it out. Oh, so you've scraped it out.
Go on, Mr. Gold.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING LOUDLY)
Look at that boy. (LAUGHS) You can pick it up, mate.
Look at that. Eh? Look at that. It's like a button.
(EXCLAIMS) Oh, beautiful. Oh, look at that. Eh!
You weren't far wrong. Beautiful, mate. About an ounce.
I'm getting a bit of a shake here, mate.
I'm getting a bit of a shake there. (LAUGHS)
It's just what the Poseidon Crew needs.
Almost two-thirds of the way through their season,
this 20 gramme nugget is worth at least $1,600.
It's all to pay wages, running costs,
and what it cost me to mine this ground,
I still haven't made a cent.
So, I need to find some more gold.
You know, we need around about $5,000 a week.
If we don't get that, you know, we're basically going backwards.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) A bit of gold.
It's only a little tucker, but it's good to see them.
Hopefully, it'll start adding up.
Just gotta keep digging, and keep swinging.
Nice little bit.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Maybe two grammes. Not a bad little piece.
That's nice.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Eth. Eth. Come on and have a look, boys.
ETHAN: We're coming.
Will yous hurry up! Hey...
there's a 100 years nearly here... I know that.
..walking across. I'm not waiting. I've spent long enough. (CHUCKLES)
There? Yeah. Do the honours.
You got the first grub.
Please don't disappoint us.
That's gold. (ALL CHEERING)
That is a little chunk.
That is a good little bit. Eh?
Told ya. Chunky gold.
Look, it's not a 50-ouncer. Hey, but that's a good sign.
Open it. We could get a smile there, eh. All right. (LAUGHS)
I'm happy with that. You know what?
If you pick one out of every ped, just one piece like that every ped, you're doing all right everyday.
Then get a monster nugget... and you're doing really well. That will pay the bills.
Correct. The other one's a bit of crap. Absolutely.
We ain't wasting our time here, Ethan. Good.
We won't be wasting our time here, mate. We will find some good gold here.
ROB: How did you sleep last night? TURBO: Ah!
Yeah, I was a bit (BLEEP) worried.
Each time I heard the pitter patter I opened my eyes and I went,
"Oh, God, please don't let this be shutting us down."
In western Australia, the Gold Timers, Rob and Turbo,
are hoping overnight rain hasn't soaked pay dirt,
stockpiled at their nearby lease.
And you know what it's like out here?
It could be dry there, and it could be 10 mill over there.
(LAUGHS) We've seen it before. Yep.
The pair have hired a dry blower for the week
from a neighbouring miner to recover fine gold.
They'll pay him a 25% cut of anything they find.
But the blower can't process water-laden pay dirt.
I just want to get working. Yeah, man.
We're not making gold if we're not running the dry blower. Yeah, that's right.
(GROANS)
This is a tell-tale here.
Beautiful! Let's do some dry blowing.
Well, we've had doubts to pull it. The rain didn't get down here.
Everything's beautiful. We're ready just to get started.
(GENERATOR STARTING)
Well, start her up.
We've got no power.
Bro, this isn't starting.
I've got no power. I flipped the switch and there's nothing.
It'll be better off to just give him a call.
I don't really want to touch anything, do we? Yeah. So...
No, mate, I don't. Yeah.
I've got...
It's very easy if we start something out here. Yeah. All right.
We've got the genny fired up.
We turned the main switch, and there's no power coming up to the board.
So, erm...
I'll have to try to find out what's going on with it.
I'll ring Nathan.
Mate, just remember,
if we broke this thing, we bought it, we don't have 40 grand.
So, erm, hopefully, it's something simple.
Look, this is our first day with it since he's left,
and I don't want to risk us...
doing anything wrong that could damage this machine.
So, yeah, I'll go make a call, mate.
Now I'm going to shoot up to the hill up here.
Try and get enough reception to give Nathan a ring.
The Gold Timers lease is 600km from the coast,
at the very edge of cell phone coverage.
(MOBILE PHONE RINGS) Nate.
Yeah, mate, it's Rob. Yeah, there is something going on. Erm...
I've gone and flicked the power button in the box
to crank everything up, and there's just no power.
I hope nothing has happened to this machine,
it's 40 grand we don't have. If we broke it, we bought it.
I'm really hoping it's something simple.
I don't know. I'm a bit stressed at the moment.
Check the lead to the genny?
Check the RCD switch.
That's really all it could be.
Yeah, Turbo. Have you got a copy, mate?
Yeah, mate, how'd you go?
Yeah, I got hold of him. Erm, he said... (CHUCKLES)
He said check the RCD. If I've shut one of them out of the right way,
it could have flipped the switch. So, yeah, check the RCD.
Not checking the residual current device... All right. ..or RCD,
is s a rookie mistake. Hey, Rob, dum-dum.
It's designed to switch off if there's any power surges
or electrical issues with the dry blower.
Yeah, I'll turn it on, see how we go.
How'd you go, mate?
Yeah, it was turned off, mate.
Hey, Rob did it again. (BLEEP) Dum-dum.
(LAUGHS) All right, mate. Well, that's good news.
(GENERATOR STARTS)
(SIGHS) That's, erm...
That's a big load off my shoulders.
Oh! Dum-dum. (MACHINE RUNNING)
Yeah, it's fixed. Back in business.
Got to load her up. Oh, happy days.
Everything's running, we're blowing dirt.
We've avoided rain, and we've avoided a catastrophe with the machine.
So, let's just get back into blowing some dirt.
Thank God it was that simple, man. (LAUGHS)
I was freaked out a bit, you know. It's not ours,
I didn't wanna go playing with that.
Always next time. Dum-dum. (BOTH LAUGHING)
All right, that's the end of that drum.
Things are going well. We're pumping out 30-plus tonnes an hour.
So we're really hoping there's gonna be a really good clean-up out of this.
We need it.
This is the last step in working this part of the lease,
before starting a process of returning the land to its original state.
Once you've done your pushing, you got to rehab your ground.
You bring all the dirt back, re-spread it, back-blade it,
bring any trees that you've scraped away, put them back into place.
It's a really important part of what you do out here.
Well, last bucket. Moment of truth, going to be the clean-up,
and hopefully we got a few ounces.
The Gold Timers have spent the better part of the week
feeding almost 1,000 tonnes of material into the dry blower.
Hey, mate, that's it. We're all done, mate.
Let's just go and see how much money we've made.
(SIGHS)
And, hopefully, eh... Well...
There's 20 ounces in there. Twenty ounces. There better be.
The next step is to separate tiny gold particles
from the remaining lightweight dirt and dust.
Let's go.
Right, so this is our clean-up station. A little loose sluice.
Pour our dirt in. The water there will start cleaning all the dirt and dust...
and the mud out of it.
And then we start brushing dirt. What it's doing is, it's letting all the fine gold
fall through to this little tray, which gets washed down onto the riffle mats.
Be the brush. It's gotta be the brush.
Eh, be the brush. Be the brush.
Oh, it's all boiling down to this, mate.
Well, if this pays off, then we've a bit of pressure on us.
We're over halfway the season now,
and we've only got five ounces...
We got some catching up to do on the gold counts, so...
We need at least a couple of ounces... Oh, yeah. ..seriously.
All the work we've done, it's been a hell of a week, man. Yup.
Come on, gold. Where are you?
Oh! Oh, look, there's a couple. (LAUGHING)
Dang! Here's another one.
Oh, we're starting to get onto it. (EXCLAIMS)
Eh? Got him. Got him.
Yeah, we're getting some pickings out.
This is the stuff that won't go through the screen.
All the fines are going straight through down into the riffles.
So, yeah, this is, er, this is what we're here for.
If we get a few pickings every scoop,
that'll amount to quite a lot of lighter stuff.
That's another bit. You got another one? Yeah.
(LAUGHS) Bang!
Well, this is exciting, mate. That's what we're here for, bro.
Well, that's a good sign.
We're on the gold. Yeah, we're on the gold, bro.
2 00:33:47.760 -- 00:33:50.240 align:middle line:90% position:50% Maybe we should check in a few of these valleys here.
I just hope they're not the valley of death.
Shane and Russell are travelling to some of the most remote areas in Western Australia
in search of big gold,
but they found nothing but rubbish this week.
We're in the Pilbara, and this is the Wild West.
Man, it's north, it's about 1,300km from Perth.
We just gotta be careful of snakes in this grass,
but I'll find a nice clear spot for us and we'll be all right.
I like this, a bit of salt and pepper.
Just the right mix. I like this a lot.
Salt and pepper, is a mix of black ironstone and white quartz pebbles
that is often a good indicator of gold.
But what I don't like is this benefice.
You know what's in that, don't you?
Tell me. A Death Adder.
So you put these on. Well, it's just not worth the risk, Shane.
These are all very nice. You imagine that,
a pocket full of gold and you end up dead by a snake.
There's a snake up here called the Death Adder.
And within half an hour, you might as well do a video,
tell your wife and kids you love 'em,
because it's all over. They're not gonna get you out.
This protection is a gaiter.
So, it's just a hard layer, just around the calf.
We're gonna be all right.
Oh, I'm gonna go through it.
I'm glad I got these gaiters on.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
(LOUDER METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
That's a good sound.
I'm going to have a scrape.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) I've got a sound here.
Right, it's in my hand.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) It's still in here.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) So I'll just go halfway now.
Still in here. Still in my scoop.
Oh! There it is. There. Look at that.
I'd say it's about 0.8,
but it's got quite a bit of ironstone in it.
But I don't care, it's a piece of gold.
The nugget is worth about $60,
and it's the first gold they found
after nearly three days of hard work.
That's in the bin, one for Shaney boy.
Well, hopefully, Shane's finding some gold, cos it's been a bit quiet.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
That's a signal. It's just slight, it's a signal.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) (LAUGHS) You beauty.
(METAL DETECTOR BUZZING)
(EXCLAIMS, LAUGHS)
That's a nugget. That's five or six, at least. I'd have to weigh it up to find out,
but that's my biggest bit for a long time.
Unbelievable. You beauty. There might be more.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Gee, that's too convincing. It sounds like a bullet to me.
Oh, yeah. I should be able to see that, it's on the top.
It's here somewhere.
I've probably heard about it a million times.
This is what you call a Sunbaker.
It's just a piece of gold that's just been sitting on the surface.
I don't need a detector to find this.
Look at that, covered in ironstone.
You know what? I've got two bits of gold in this container. Now I can rattle.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) That's not bad, that is.
Just like that, it's what we want.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Ha, ha. You little beauty.
That's gold. That's specimen. That's got gold right through it.
It's got a big section of gold this side,
and it's got gold splatter right through on the other side.
That's gonna be an ounce at least, that is.
That's as good as money in the bank, that is.
BRENT: All right, boys. Let's actually see what we've got.
In Victoria, The Poseidon Crew are eager to find out
if the first week of digging on their new lease
was profitable or not.
We got a late start, we met the Cattos,
we pushed a bit off, found a little bit of gold,
between that and keeping the light running late,
I think we've done OK.
I think so, too, mate. Plus, just finding our feet, it's a new site.
It's been a while. What do you reckon, Pauly?
Happy back digging again? I'm happy. Finding gold. I can see that smile.
I like finding gold. We can't wait.
I like finding gold. We can smell it. Yeah.
All right. What do we got here? Let's weigh this stuff up, eh.
But anyway, it's not too bad.
So, I'm weighing the small stuff, boys.
We got 0.7...
Yeah. ..which is, you know, all right.
Plus these slightly bigger ones.
You've got 1.38. Yeah.
And then all up, boys. We've got...
..2.09.
Not too bad for the time we were pushing on that. Which is all right.
We got gold every haul we pulled out. That's the main thing.
I reckon that's a good start, really. Absolutely.
The first two ounces of gold from Catto's Paddock
are barely enough to pay their expenses for the week,
but they're proof the Old Timers left gold's behind.
Considering the amount of digging we've actually done here, this is all right.
Considering how much they flogged this ground... I think so.
..this is good gold. And it's heavy little pieces, too.
It's a little bit heavy. It's quite solid, so... This place must've been rich.
This must have been rich. Would've been exciting.
Oh, mate, imagine being here when that was first here, mate.
And now I'm hearing that a 1,700-ouncer being just found, and a 795...
It's only just a matter of time, boys, before we come across a good slug.
I agree. It really is. I do agree. It really is. Absolutely. Yeah, OK.
Let's go on. Well done.
RUSSELL: How's this country, eh? SHANE: It's unbelievable.
I just can't get over the gold that's up here. That's ridiculous.
In Western Australia, Shane and Russell
are hoping that they've clawed back some of the expenses
from their season-long trip, costing them $5,000 a week.
See if it's worthwhile being here.
It's a good-sized gold.
Beautiful-sized gold.
1.67. That's not bad.
Russell, tell me what that is in dollars. That's about four Gs.
Just over. Very good, Russell.
Very good. That's good. And then this specie,
I reckon it's about 15 grands worth of gold in here. Let me have a look at that.
The gold shed right through coming out the other side as well,
so that, there could be a huge amount in the middle.
All gold there. We'll crush it and weigh it. Weigh it up.
I reckon it'll be, I feel at about 15 grammes in there. OK.
3.1, so...
I reckon about 2.1 ounces is what we've got. Just hit me with me a number.
Oh, that's over $5,000. That's good enough for me.
That's very good. It's all right. That's a very, very good week.
Russell has estimated that a third of the 1.5-ounce specimen is gold.
The haul means they've finally covered their expenses for the week.
So, the bottom line is we're still in the game.
Worth staying in there, with that money. Just give it another week
and I might be able to find a couple of other spots for us to go to. Yeah? Mm.
Just be careful there. That's hard enough to find.
What are you doing there? The wind will blow it off. It's not gonna blow these ones off.
This is proper gold. This is big stuff. Yeah.
Well done, Russell. Game on, still. Game on. Let's go. Let's find some more.
We've done all right. Yep. We're still in the game. Let's do it.
Another week, eh? Yep.
ROB: All right. There he is. TURBO: Yeah, he's coming.
In Kookynie, Rob and Turbo
are about to find out how much gold they found this week,
and give Nathan, the dry blower owner, his 25% cut.
Nathan. Hey, y'all. How are ya?
Good. Cut the draws on the machine, I hear.
Yeah. So, yeah, now he wants me to say. Yeah.
Because I know how to use a power player. (BOTH LAUGH)
On and off? Ah, yeah. Yeah, mate. Yeah.
We got a little bit of gold for you. Good news or bad news?
No. Hold it, you have a feeling. Yeah.
Have a bit of a guesstimation.
Oh, that's pretty good. Three ounces, maybe?
Yeah, I'm calling two and a half. Mm-hm.
2.8, something like that. Well, it looks pretty good.
That's a good weight there. We're all getting paid, I know that. Yeah. Payday.
Let's see how much it's gonna be. All right, boys.
All right, this is the moment of truth.
0.5...
One, one and a half, two, three, three and a half...
Four, four ounces. That's pretty good, boys.
(LAUGHTER) Yeah. Go on, take out your percentage.
The Gold Timers will keep three out of four ounces
in their best weigh-in of the season,
giving them a real chance of finally making their target this year.
Well, there's an ounce straight up, mate, for you.
Yeah, I appreciate it, it's good.
But, look, after this week, do you reckon we could continue this on
for another week on the same percent? Yeah, sure. Yeah?
I'll be happy to do it. All right. Well, that's...
Keep bringing results like that, you can keep it for as long as you want. Yeah.
All right, mate. Done deal, mate.
What do you reckon? Shall we go have a few beers at the pub
and celebrate? Yeah, Rob's share. No, your share, mate. (LAUGHTER)
Yeah, let's do it. Right. Let's go. Let's go have a few beers.
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