NARRATOR: This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
They busted the locks off, mate.
..a break-in at the gold retrievers' camp...
Generator's gone. And my power tools? Hurry up.
..heaps more pressure on Brad and Chris' strange partnership.
We're partners. You shouldn't be doing this crap. This is the future.
I'm not interested in signing over to a mining lease, Chris.
I'm over it, mate.
Halfway through their season,
Marcus and Linden finally hit a rich patch of nuggets...
(CHEERING AND LAUGHING)
..until a bombshell drops that could end their operation.
We're gonna have to take the loader back.
Looks like this is all over, man.
Mate! The Gold Timers' operation steps up again...
Good to have you here. ..with the help of Rob's grandfather, Roy,
and a borrowed dry blower...
(LAUGHS) Oh, my God. We have got fines.
Roy! ..before the extreme heat takes its toll.
Pop! Pop! What's the matter, Pop?
It looks like, on the camera, they had a pod on the back,
so I'm hoping they didn't get to that fuel.
BRAD: This is the problem with being so remote.
There's nothing we can do about it. That's the frustrating part.
Brad McGhie and business partner, Chris Smith,
have raced over 500 km east
from their home city of Perth to their Devil's Cut lease...
after their security camera app was triggered by intruders.
You reckon that was that same youth? I don't know.
It's hard to tell. It's almost like it's someone
that knows that we weren't here. This is happening so often here.
At the start of the season, Brad and Chris chased off thieves
who were trying to steal their generator.
Oy! Stop! Block him in, Chris. He's getting away, mate! Hurry up!
Oy! Stop!
Get him, Chris! Chase him! Go! Go, go!
But this time they were at home hundreds of kilometres away.
It's a six-and-a-half-hour drive to get up here.
We can't afford to lose anything else,
so we had no choice but to jump in the cars, head on straight up.
And now we're pulling up.
Holy (BLEEP). The doors are open.
Everything's open, mate.
They busted the locks off, mate. They've been in the donga.
Oh, my God. I'm over this. I am really over it.
They've trashed it, mate.
Mate, they're in the container, too, eh?
Ah, this is crap. All the fuel's gone.
How much fuel did we have? We filled that just before we left.
Ah, you (BLEEP) kidding me.
Inverter's gone. That's a brand-new inverter.
And the chainsaw.
This pisses me off, eh.
Well, they cut this lock, too, mate.
Generator's gone.
And my power tools? Thousand bucks with the power tools.
You kidding me. 1,500 bucks with the genny.
All right, man. This is heartbreaking.
We sort of just started getting in front.
The worst thing is watching them on camera, there's nothing you can do about it.
This is so depressing, mate.
Pointless locking (BLEEP) around here.
Brad and Chris have had more than $5,000
of critical equipment and fuel stolen.
We can't just sit around. We're here now. We need to do something.
So I suggest that we start digging in the pit.
Well, you know my thoughts, Brad. What's that?
I wanna keep chasing that vein. I know it's gonna pop up somewhere.
Mate, I'm sick of hearing about that vein, man.
We're not set up for that sort of mining, Chris. Right.
We're set up for alluvial, man.
That is a whole different ball game. We don't have the gear for that.
Holy dooley. At their last weighing... That's a monster.
..Brad and Chris almost doubled their tally
with a huge 11oz haul of nuggets
they believe had shed from quartz veins
running through their lease.
To find that much gold with a detector, we've been very lucky.
I think there's a lot more embedded in that rock that we can't get to.
Meet me halfway.
Continue on the pit, you can lay it out. All right.
I'm gonna keep searching for that vein.
As long as we're in that pit, I'll dig out a certain direction.
If you wanna find that vein, but we're laying that out.
We need to find gold. That's where the money is right now.
We've invested a lot of money
into getting equipment chasing alluvial gold.
To change now to hard rock mining is a massive venture.
Alluvial gold erodes from rock to form nuggets and fine gold
that spreads out over millions of years,
while hard rock mining recovers concentrated gold
still encased in rock usually deeper underground.
It's just a completely different way of mining.
We're not set up for it. It'd cost more money.
It's a huge risk. I'm not willing to take that risk.
The equipment they need to crush, mill and process the quartz
would greatly increase the size and cost of their operation.
We would firstly have to change from a prospecting lease to a mining lease.
That would be a minimum of $10,000.
We need to spend $25,000 per year on expenditure,
and then at least $120,000 to spend on retainer.
I really wanna step it up,
but Brad seems to be really pushing back.
We've been at it for two years now and it's just starting to pay some money back now,
so I can't afford to keep going.
If we don't keep finding gold, then you're gonna get broke.
ROB: Plenty of soil movement, we don't want to damage this thing.
Yeah, we ought to steady, steady, man.
Just keep an eye on the back for us.
I wouldn't have cared if we pushed it by hand.
If that's what it takes to get it there in one piece,
I'll just keep an eye on things from the back.
160km north of Kalgoorlie,
Gold Timers, Rob Dale and Rob "Turbo" Linton,
are moving to another section of their 320 hectare Kookynie lease.
We've tracked over to another spot
that we've done some work in the past.
We've had some piles pushed out, ready to go.
Erm, yeah. We're hoping we'll get some good gold out of this spot.
Last week, they did a deal with their neighbour, Nathan,
to use his dry blower.
Twenty five percent. All right.
I'm happy with that. Yeah. One condition, boys,
you break it, you own it.
Yeah, OK. You owe me 40 grand.
It delivered their biggest tally of the season so far.
Oh, four ounces. That's pretty good, boys.
We don't have the machine that long.
We need to be on top of things for all of us in the deal
to make as much money as possible.
In just a few weeks, extreme outback heat
will bring an end to the Gold Timers' season.
And they're just 41% of the way to their target.
Yeah, right there. That looks nice and level.
They need this move to another area with stock piles of dirt
to finally deliver a bumper payday.
(SIGHS) It's here. Made it here in one piece.
Let's unstrap this thing in. Yeah.
Get into it.
It's a big dry blower that can process up to 35 tonne an hour.
It's got conveyors on the hopper, conveyors at the tailings.
This helps us just focus on feeding this machine.
Can you pull that up? Cheers, mate. OK.
And in turn, putting big tonnes in means big gold returns.
We're all set up, we're ready to go now.
We've been dying to get some dry blowing done here. On a large scale,
it's going to be quite impressive, I think.
Oh, here he is, the pop.
I thought I'd give Pop a call and see if he'd come out and give us a hand for the week.
Oh, look, he's excited already. Hey. (LAUGHTER)
Robbie. You made it, all right, Pop. Turbo, mate.
We love having Pop up, he's a good laugh.
He's very positive and he loves the gold, loves being in the bush.
Look what we got here. A bit bigger than the last one?
Yeah, the fat and little one.
Rob's grandfather, Roy, has returned to give the Gold Timers a hand.
We'll give you a rundown on the machine. Yeah.
A former coal miner from northern England,
Roy moved to Australia in the 1960s,
and has taken up metal detecting over the past few years.
So once she's up and running, I just basically need you to keep an eye on the feed.
We need to make sure we don't get too much flooding happening over the riffles,
and they start running dry.
Because if they start running dry, they'll blow all that gold out.
But it should run pretty smoothly,
and that has to be kept an eye on. Yeah. OK, mate.
Easy enough. We'll go and get this thing fired up. All right, mate.
I'll do anything I can to help these guys.
A little bit dusty. Stinking hot.
Somebody's got to do it, that's what we're here for.
Rain, snow, or blow, we got to get the gold.
Come on, mate, crank her up.
(ENGINE STARTING)
I'm gonna leave you guys to it.
I'm gonna get down in the crate and start doing some sampling.
Yeah, no worries, man. That'll be good.
We've had a lead of gold running right down to the edge of the creek.
The gold's washed down into here,
we could have a mega load of gold in this.
Light weight fine gold,
is often carried by ancient water courses.
And if Rob's samples contain fine gold,
it'll be worth bringing in the loader
to scrape off the top soil for processing.
But there are boundaries only 15 metres from me here,
so I'm really hoping that we can find something at this part,
because this is really all we can mine.
If I go through and take some samples all the way around the creek,
it will help me show where the fine gold stops,
and where it's its strongest.
Yeah, this will save us time,
I'm just pushing the hell out of everything.
The less work we do with the equipment, the less fuel we use,
which means we save more money.
This is the only income we have.
We've both got a family back home. Kids, wives, mortgages.
This season we've invested a lot of money back into our operation,
and we're really hoping that the deal we've done with this dry blower
is gonna cover all the costs and put us back ahead of the game and our target.
I haven't really found anything in this sample.
I might take one from the middle of the creek,
and then take one from the other side.
The dry blower's gone sneak. We've had no problems with it.
I mean, I can't wait to see what comes out of this dirt.
Fingers crossed, we get a good payday out of it.
They won't know how rich the pay dirt is
until they process all the concentrates.
Yeah, no, unfortunately, there's nothing in this pan either.
I'll move back closer to the edge of the creek.
We've only got a few weeks left of the season.
Still a bit of fair way to go.
We just need to capitalise on our time as much as possible.
I don't want to be away from my kids and my missus for no reason so,
it's all about making money. Rob.
Get down here, mate. Pop's down.
Roy!
Hey! Pop! What's the matter, Pop?
Are you all right? I think I'm losing, mate.
And when did you have a drink last? (SIGHS)
Half an hour ago. All right.
I think he might have gone down with heat stroke.
Pop, are you all right, buddy? Pop? Yeah.
Are you all right? Yeah. You've been dizzy or you...
Yeah, a bit wobbly. All right. Can we get him over to the car
and get him some water? Get him to the shade.
Come on, Pop. Come, mate. Yeah, yeah.
We got a little bit of shade. Take it easy.
You didn't trip over or nothing, did you? Oh, you all right? Yes.
(GROANS) Yeah. I'll go get you some water.
A bit wobbling... We need warm water. I've got some here.
When Papa peered through the dust on the floor,
I didn't know what to think. Could he have had a heart attack,
or a rock could have hit him in the head
coming off the conveyor or something?
I just didn't know at the time.
Here, I'll put a little bit on your head, Pop, try and bring the temperature down. (GROANS)
Oh, that's gonna be cold. Oh. (GROANS)
Have a drink, mate. Yeah, try to get some water in you.
Sorry, guys. No, no, that's all right, Pop.
Come on, Pop. Easy, man, let him get up.
He's a bit wobbly, Pop. All right.
Move it. Yeah. We'll keep you in the shade for ten minutes to see how it goes,
if you're not feeling any better, we're running you to hospital.
No, there's no need for that.
Heat stress kills over 500 people every year in Australia.
When the body temperature rises above 40 degrees Celsius,
cells begin to die and organs eventually fail.
I'll give you ten minutes. Oh, mate, you scared the absolute bejesus out of me.
Oh, I'm sorry, mate. No, no, no, don't.
Absolutely worried the hell out of me, you know. It's my pop, erm,
yeah, it's the last thing I want to see is anything bad happen to him.
We'll monitor him for another half an hour or so, erm, just in case,
cos I won't muck around if he's not getting any better,
we'll take him to hospital.
We'll get over it. I've been buried down the mines...
twice.
So, hit on the head with (BLEEP) roof supports.
I've got the scar to prove it.
Up there, man. See the scar there, man.
(GENERATOR STARTING)
That thing's got working. Thank Christ.
I wasn't too sure what was gonna happen when we shut this down quickly,
but it's got a safety switch anyway, so...
erm, you'll get back into it.
How you doing, Pop? A lot better right now. A lot better.
You know what you've earned yourself? What? The rest of the day off.
Really? Yeah. Still daylight, mate. I know.
But it doesn't matter. Nan will never forgive me.
Don't tell her for Christ's sake. If you have the rest of the afternoon off,
I'll keep my mouth shut. (LAUGHTER)
Come on, Pop.
The old fellow gave us a bit of a scare there.
I think the heat got to him.
He's a hard old fellow so, I think he'll be all right.
We're still a long way from target.
With or without Pop, we'll just keep going,
that means we both just focus on the machine's for now, and that's what we'll do.
We'll be down here until the sun goes down so,
let's finally get back into it.
2 00:14:36.200 -- 00:14:38.520 align:middle line:90% position:50% That's it. Keep on going, old boy.
The only way we're gonna get anything done
is if we just keep on hitting it hard.
Yeah, man, we're hitting it hard. This ground is hard, too.
53km northwest of the gold hub of Kalgoorlie,
Marcus McGuire and his brother Linden Brownley,
are working a two kilometre square lease near Ora Banda.
For this way we've got this loader here,
to push deep, push paths,
so we can start getting more of those nuggets,
We see everybody else doing this work and they're doing pretty well,
so we thought we'd might give that a bit of a crack.
The brothers have borrowed an eight tonne loader
to help break through the hardened natural cement known as calcrete
that's common in the area.
Yeah, man, the hardest thing about it is,
she's just bouncing off it.
That calcrete, she is hard, all right.
The pressure to find gold is huge. The machines cost daily,
so we can only push so much with the money we've got.
The 115 horsepower loader
has pushed the team's expenses up to $1,400 a week.
There's a lot at stake this year,
I have my six children that are here in town living with me,
five of them who's living at home.
And I also have a grandson coming on the way.
Spending that extra on diesel and expenditures to run the machine,
you know, it's definitely cutting it short for the rest of the family.
Two and half million dollars, bros.
Recently, the brothers and partner Dale Harring,
went chasing rumours of a massive nugget... Whoa! Whoa!
..unearthed close to where the legendary Golden Eagle was found, in 1931.
Ah! Ah! You're kidding me.
So that would take it to 1.9 altogether, grammes. Nearly 1.9 grammes.
Looking for a 1,000 ounce nugget, and what? Nothing.
The disastrous week has left them with over $43,000 still to find,
well over halfway into their season. (DETECTOR BEEPING)
This is a real critical moment,
we're literally 18 ounces away from our target.
So I'm really hoping that this ped is gonna yield us some nuggets. It has to.
Otherwise, we're going to have to consider the future
of our prospecting days.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Got a signal. Got a signal. Got a signal.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Oh, that sounds good.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) I'm hoping that it's not bucket from the loader.
Got a good little sound here, man.
Dig it up.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) It's out.
Whoo.
Please don't be blade.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Ooh! Hello.
Oh! Look at that.
Hey, mate, got one.
Solid, man. Big...
Maybe about 0.6 or 0.7 of a gramme, but she's colour.
Looks like you're finally finding some gold, old boy.
Yeah. It took me to get off the loader to come and help us get gold.
Yeah, right. (BOTH LAUGH)
I know, it all adds up but,
we need to come across some serious nuggets
to try and put a dent in that target.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
So, Brad, what do you reckon we lost?
About four and a half, five grands worth of gear?
Yeah, and some, mate.
The gold retrievers are scrambling to find gold
to recoup the loss of thousands of dollars of equipment
stolen overnight.
And that's gonna equate to probably four or five ounces
we've got to find this trip, mate.
Chris believes there is a greater source of gold here
trapped in quartz veins deeper underground.
If we do find this vein,
and it's producing some good grammes per tonne,
with the price of gold the way it is,
that could put all the kids through private school and...
it'd be really nice to buy the daughter a brand new car,
and set her up in her own apartment, things like that.
You know, to go hard rock mining and change it to a mining lease,
it's a game changer.
The huge gamble involves spending over $150,000
on expanding their operation to include a hard rock mining plant.
I'm up here to do this to support the family.
We've already taken a huge risk in putting money into the operation we've got.
I'm not willing to put money into changing the whole operation now.
It's too risky.
The investment that we've put in towards the operation here
has been around $250,000.
That's a lot of money to put in.
This is the product that I've asked Brad to pull out.
It's much closer to the source,
we're starting to see signs of broken dirty quartz. (DETECTOR STATIC)
What I want to see is more pieces of gold,
not necessarily bigger.
(DETECTOR BEEPS) There's a target.
It's not that big, but...
It's a very distinctive sound.
(DETECTOR BEEPS) Now that's in the scoop now.
Very small.
(LAUGHS)
Tiny little nugget embedded in rock.
That's exactly what I need to prove to Brad,
that we need to start crashing this stuff.
If there's lots of this stuff here, then there's got to be finer.
And to get that finer gold, we're not gonna get it with detectors,
and we're not gonna get it with a dry blower because it's embedded in rocks.
That will just flow out of a dry blower.
So I'm gonna go and show Brad this,
and see if I can start changing his mind.
You got a minute? Yeah, fixing oil leaks, mate.
What have you got?
Right, this is what I've been talking about the whole time.
Yeah, all right. How are we supposed to get that out?
There's a lot more fine stuff out there
that we're not finding with the detectors.
We need to switch it up into a mining lease.
You found one nugget. There's stuff all over there.
You've got to find a lot more than that. Pull your head out of the sand.
This is where we need to go. We need to crush this stuff.
I've got the paperwork there for you to sign.
What paperwork? All I need is your signature. To sign over to a mining lease.
Without telling me? We're partners. You shouldn't be doing this crap without me.
This is the future. Pull your head out of your arse.
I'm not interested in signing over to a mining lease, Chris.
You know what? I'm gonna do alluvial mining.
If you wanna do hard rock mining, do it your (BLEEP) self, all right?
I'm over it, man.
2 00:21:24.800 -- 00:21:27.640 align:middle line:90% position:50% Marcus and Linden, have you got ears on?
Hi! What you doing?
Well, just come through to the peds, I've got some news to tell you.
Yeah, all right then.
Dale is not only a team member,
but also a mentor to Marcus and Linden. Hey. How'd it go?
It's going awesome. Hey, look here.
They rely heavily on her 25 years of experience. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
Hey. Well, you got some ground moved.
This bloke here has been acting like as if he's cracking a whip.
(LAUGHS) Look, guys, I've actually come out to tell you,
I've got some bad news for you.
You know how I was coming out for the couple of weeks? Well, I won't be now,
cos my boss has had to go away, and I've got to manage the shop. (CLICKS TONGUE)
True. Yeah. So that's basically leaving you two here,
er, to working for yourself.
Look, you know enough. You've done it with me.
I trust you fully, so... Mm.
Our other alternative, we pack up and go home, what...
you know, it's up to you guys.
We'll be all right. You are.
We'll be all right. We'll be good. You taught us a lot,
it's not like we're amateurs any more.
That's right. All you got to remember,
just keep following that south hastily.
You're just gonna try to follow those old paleo channels all down that way. Yeah.
I will miss you, but that's your job, you know...
Yeah. Livelihood, you gotta do what you gotta do.
I'll leave yous to it. Yeah. All right.
I'll catch up with you. Keep in touch, eh? Yeah. Yeah.
I'm big disappointed, they're a bit disappointed.
But look, I've taught them enough. They know what to do now,
er, so I'll leave it in their good hands.
It's over, mate. We can't just sit around and mope,
let's get back into it. Yeah.
(ENGINE STARTS)
No, I understand what Dale could do, but we gotta push harder now.
We've got mouths to feed.
What we're trying to do right here,
is find some of those old paleo channels
that Dale has been telling us about.
Paleo channels are the beds of old waterways
that have changed direction or run dry,
and then being buried over time by new sediments.
These hidden channels can be a rich source of gold.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Whoo-hoo. (LAUGHS)
I've got a good signal. I'm going to dig it, all right.
All right, man, I'll pack up. I'll be over.
Hey. Hey. Come over here and have a listen.
There's something in there. I don't think it's blade
because it's not in the rock.
All right, mate, what do you reckon?
Look. I wanna see it. Look there, there's a tree root.
Ah, she's out.
Come on, come on, plum, come on, come on. (METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Hey! A nugget. (BOTH LAUGHING)
(LAUGHING) Look at that. Oh, look at that shine.
I think Dale's gonna be upset she left now.
I'll hop in the loader and start pushing.
I'm also gonna head down the hill. And do a bit more, man. Keep going, old boy. All right.
You're doing a good job there, man.
Must be, mate, we're getting the gold. We're on the gold.
This is roughly about two grammes.
Still it doesn't put a dent in our target,
but it's a good sign that we are on good gold ground.
Marcus just needs to keep pushing, and I'll just keep twigging. Let's go.
The nugget is worth $160,
but they'll need eight more like this
just to cover their weekly expenses.
Hey, I'm back, man. Solid.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) That's that sweet sound.
Sweet music to my ears.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
This better be gold, I'd totally stuff her in.
Hey, hey! (LAUGHING) Well...
How much you reckon? Well, it's not big, man.
Hopefully, there's bigger ones like this.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Oh, that's nice.
Because it's calcrete it's probably going to be bucket.
But I've got to dig it anyway.
It's right on top of the rocks now.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Finally got it.
All right, there. It's gold.
Look at that. Might be a gramme.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Whoo-hoo! (LAUGHING)
And there she is. Hey, hey!
(LAUGHING)
That's a nice little piece of gold there.
Promising, but we're still a long way off, man.
You don't know. But, hey, it's colour.
Here they are.
Hello. (LAUGHS)
Where have you been? Oh, I had to go get beers for Pop.
How you feeling? All right? Top of the world. Yeah. 100 percent.
Gave us a bit of a scare yesterday.
As long as you don't let the family know. Or else they'll ban me from this place.
What happens in Kookynie stays in Kookynie.
Come on. Enough talking. All right, all right. Sorry, mate.
Let's get into it. Come on, mate. Come on.
It's high enough. So I'll just put the drum up here.
Fair bit of work to do today, erm, I'm gonna keep feeding this dry blower.
Rob's going to go down the creek and do some more sampling.
Well, basically, to get samples all around the area but,
we've gotten gold all the way down here,
so I just want to do a couple more pans.
I'd really like to get the machine in here, but I want to justify doing it.
We do need to make a profit here.
You know, it's been all this time away from family and kids and that sort of stuff.
We really need this to work, and we need to find ten grammes or more a day.
That adds up to $4,000 of gold in a five-day week.
Not at the end of the tails now.
Ah! (EXCLAIMS)
Look at this.
First pan of the morning. You beauty!
All right. We are gonna have to get the loader in here.
Turbo, good luck.
Yeah, bro. Check this out.
Finally got some? I knew I'd get something in the creek, man.
Look at this. Oh, yeah. Wicked, man.
I think we know what we're doing now, eh? Hope so.
(LAUGHS) Yeah. All right.
This much fine gold in a one kilo sample pan,
shows the pay dirt is worth pushing,
detecting and processing through their dry blower.
We're finally getting somewhere.
I think we're onto winning here. I really do.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Oh, that's our target.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Oh, he's out the ground.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) What's in my hand?
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Oh, there it is.
(EXCLAIMS)
What a beautiful little bit. That's over a gramme.
That's a lovely piece of gold. (LAUGHING)
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Oh, that's lovely sound.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
Pop. I can even see it. There you go.
Whoo-hoo! Look at that!
That's enough to be a gramme.
Whoo-hoo!
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) Oh, I got a noise here.
(EXCLAIMING)
Check that out for a specie. Wow!
There's probably ten grammes of gold in this.
It's just loaded with veins of gold all through this one piece of quartz.
A specimen like this is highly sought after,
and could be worth well over $1,000 to a collector.
This is probably the best one we've found.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC)
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) Oh, you're kidding.
This is where it gets real exciting.
Hey! Look at that.
Nothing can compare.
It's in my hand.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) It's still in my hand.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) (EXCLAIMS, LAUGHS)
Another piece of gold.
My pops found a few, I found a few now.
Mate, this cut's been great.
Yeah, I reckon we call it for the week, mate.
I'm just gonna finish this bucket off.
Yep, yep. No, I feel the same, mate.
She's really heating up and we've got a lot of sluicing to do.
I think we should go up and start this clean-up.
See what we got. Hopefully, on a good vein, hopefully, get a couple ounces.
All right, we'll get these trays off,
and we'll get up and start this.
Yeah. The clean-up process, eh? Yep.
All the hard work we've done is come down to this bucket.
Have concentrates, and there better be some (BLEEP) gold in here.
To find out that Chris has already got the paperwork to change into a mining lease,
pissed me off because we're supposed to talk about this.
We're supposed to be partners and discuss these sort of things.
If we can't work together, then there is no point in us being here.
Hey, mate, you wanna have a chat about this.
Yeah, I think we probably should.
I just want you to know that everything that I did,
I had both of our interests at heart.
Yeah. Look, I get that. But, you know, we're supposed to be a team.
So, we'd already discussed it,
and for you to go off and sort of start the process or even get the paperwork on that
is pretty much going behind my back.
Nothing's been done yet, so...
we're all good. As you know, I'm just passionate about
what we're doing here and what our potential is.
Yeah, I get that, mate. I get that.
And I know that you're trying to do what's best for us, mate,
but I'm scared that we're gonna go broke,
with what we're doing now,
let alone taking on a whole new process, mate. You know what I mean?
I have no problem, maybe next year,
looking at that side of the mining thing.
But let's try and make some money first
that we can invest into it, if we are gonna do it.
But I just feel like we're both sort of on different paths here
right now, mate, and it's just not gonna work.
No, we're on the same path.
I won't make any decisions without you. We need to find some gold.
We need to make target this season at least to pay some money back.
All right. So are we good? Yeah, we're good, man. We're good.
We just need to get back into it. All right, mate. All right. Too easy, buddy.
Let's go back to work, eh.
The duo will concentrate on chasing alluvial gold for now.
(METAL DETECTOR STATIC) So I'm just detecting the pile at Chris' line here,
some of this stuff now, so I'm just going over it quickly just in case.
Some of the best pieces we found were just sort of still in the pile, we hadn't laid out yet.
(METAL DETECTOR BEEPING) There's a signal in here.
Let's hope it's a small piece of gold.
There it is.
A little piece of gold. Probably about a gramme.
It's still got the rock stuck to it as well.
We're finding little bits and pieces here and there, but nothing like last few weeks,
but it all adds up.
We haven't been finding very much this trip.
It's quite depressing, actually.
We really need to at least pay for the trip,
and pay for the gear that we've lost,
and try and get back on track.
With the stolen equipment worth $5000,
they'll need to find over two ounces of gold
to cover the costs. (DETECTOR BEEPING)
That's a target.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
All right, sucker.
(DETECTOR BEEPING)
It's inside that. Somewhere in there.
What have you got, mate?
A bit of gold locked up in some quartz, mate.
Oh, yeah. Ugly-looking rock,
and there is a piece of gold in there somewhere.
Maybe grab the ten kilo bucket... sample... Yeah. Now that's really...
..and see if you can find some more of that sort of stuff.
Go back and do some crushing? Yeah.
Chris is hoping that similar quartz rock
will contain fine gold
they can't pick up with the detector.
Yeah. But they'll need to crush it up and pan it to find out.
How is she looking, mate? No, that looks good.
Beautiful. All right, let's see what we got.
All right, so the way the bowl works is,
you have a jet of water coming in,
it'll use centrifugal force with the water.
So the light material will flow out of the centre,
and all the heavies will remain in the bowl itself.
That's hopefully where the gold will be trapped
and we'll be able to see it. It say's manual panning, doesn't it?
You can see a lot of the light stuff popping through the centre hole.
Oh, here we go, it's clearing up.
I reckon that's gold there.
See that gathering on the outside there.
That looks like a nugget, eh. It does, doesn't it?
Boom! Another one.
That came from a piece that I...
I had a bit of a signal on the detector.
But that's definitely nugget gold, it's not fine gold.
But we've still got some more to go, so let's not rule that out yet.
All right, we'll crush the rest up.
So I've just crushed up a sample,
and we're going to put it through the bowl,
and see if we can see any fine gold in there.
Tap's on.
See how that goes. I suppose it doesn't matter until this gets separated.
That's not what I wanted to see, mate. No, that's not good, eh.
I can't see anything in that one. Nah.
The bowl didn't really prove up too much for us.
It's not finding any fines, which is what I've been looking for.
Look, at this stage, we're just gonna chase the alluvial.
But look, if we come across the quartz vein, I mean,
we'll take some samples and put it through the blue bowl and see if there's anything in it.
You know, you'd be mad not to, but, er,
my main focus really is alluvial.
2 00:36:17.040 -- 00:36:19.320 align:middle line:65% position:50% MARCUS: Hey, look here. LINDEN: Is that Dave?
Yeah.
How you going, bud? Hey, fellas.
Marcus, see you later, buddy. Ain't too bad, eh? Yeah. Hey, you travelling all right?
You're getting some colour. What's happening, mate?
Oh, well, I got some bad news.
At the moment, I'm ready to start work,
start making a living again.
So we're, er, gonna have to take the loader back,
I'm sorry to say. Marcus and Lyndon
borrowed the loader from their friend Dave Askew,
in the second week of the season.
Yeah, I'm really sorry. Nothing much I can do about it, I've got to make a living, too.
Yeah. Yeah, that's right, mate. Yeah. You've got a bit of cleaning up to do,
so I'll give you a day and I'll come and grab it. Yeah, bro.
Again, really sorry I've got to take it off you.
Yeah, I understand, man. Good luck, eh.
I'll see yous tomorrow. We've got our own business to run.
I've got to eat, put food on the table for the family.
They understand that.
I will look at other options, mate.
Our options are pretty slim now.
We're 18 ounces away from our target, man.
Oh. I don't know about you, but that's pretty stuffed.
I know it's pretty stuffed, mate, but we can only do what we can do.
And I say, let's get back out and let's start walking.
We got some good gold when we were walking.
If anything, we might just start walking home.
This looks like this is all over, man.
Well, you sound like as if you've already given up.
You've got a family at home, I've got a business back home... Yeah.
Highly doubt us going back to work.
Where does that leave us? At square one.
We've gone ten steps forward... Well, square one...
..and we've taken about 15 back.
Well, I'm not giving up, mate.
It ain't over till it's over.
(ENGINE STARTS)
The worst thing about it is,
we're starting to get some colour, but...
there is absolutely no point
in working this lease without the loader.
We're gonna need to regroup with Dale.
I know she's not gonna be happy about this.
This could definitely spell the end of our season.
This is going to be a bit of a sad weigh-in, mate.
On the outskirts of Coolgardie,
the gold retrievers need two ounces of gold
to cover the cost of their stolen equipment.
That's... I'm not even looking forward to this. No, let's have a look.
0.23. That's pretty sad, innit? That's very sad.
That hasn't paid for the trip. That doesn't pay for anything.
It's, er... It's pretty much a waste of time really.
This weigh-in's been the worst one ever.
To get robbed, have all our gear stolen
and have the worst weigh-in ever was just absolutely horrendous.
So, we need to work out where we're going wrong.
Something is not right, erm, and we need to make some changes.
So I think we now need to focus on the one way of mining that we're used to.
And I'll still look for this vein but,
we need to stick to the alluvials and do what we do best.
Hi, guys, how you going? LINDEN: Hey, how are you? MARCUS: Not bad. Good.
In the gold fields near Kalgoorlie,
Marcus and Linden have something to tell their partner, Dale.
Well... Well... How did things go?
Crap. Got a bit of bad news.
What's that? Dave needs the loader back.
Oh, really? Yeah. So that's pretty much left us...
We're stuffed. Basically, we're stuffed.
But we do have a little bit of gold to weigh up. Well, let's weigh it up.
The team need $1,400, more than half an ounce of gold,
just to cover their expenses for the week.
0.19 ounces. Which works out to be...
about 480 bucks.
Which works out to be stuff all, really.
They still need over 17 ounces,
and look likely to come up short of target
for the third season in a row.
I had reservations coming in this time around,
and I was thinking it's not going to work and...
it hasn't worked out. Look, we've given it a go with the loader,
that's what we want to do.
And there's other people out there just go detecting, you know...
What about all the rumours we've heard about nuggets being found?
And it's not the end of the day.
We just got to learn to roll with it.
It's the three of us. Come on.
We're a team. I don't think it's gonna work, I'll tell you that now.
Linden seems to be taking this the hardest.
Marcus and I, we don't give up that easy,
so hopefully, we can, erm, change his mind.
All right, guys, I'm gonna head off. All right.
Keep the light up. No worries. See you. See you later, man. Yeah.
Take care, see yous. Cheer up, mate.
The Gold Timers have just a few weeks remaining
before the summer heat forces their operation to shut down.
If we take a scoop of their concentrates,
put it in the top of the screen up here,
the water washes all the fines through the holes in the screen.
It'll leave little pickets for us at the top that won't fit through the screen,
and the fines get caught in these little riffles down here.
With less than ten ounces so far,
they need the dry blower concentrates
to give them a fighting chance
of making their 20 ounce target this season.
Oh! There you go.
It's a nice one, mate. ROY: It's gold.
This is what we're here for.
There it is. Oh!
Look at this. Guys, there's another one.
Oh, man. How good is that? Just one scoop.
They may be small, but it all adds up.
We've done fantastic with the pickings out of this, so, but...
the moment of truth will be pulling that lid off the sluice
and seeing what kind of fines we've caught.
Lift. Big offer.
(LAUGHS) Oh, my God!
We have got fines. (LAUGHING)
Oh, check it out, man. That's what we're here for, bro.
Well, let's go all the way up, eh. Yeah, mate.
I'll start us off with the little nuggets. Yeah. Oh.
We're estimating to be at ten grammes of gold. Yeah? I reckon, yeah.
Mate, there's half an ounce there. (LAUGHS)
Pop, do you want to do the honours, mate? Absolutely, mate.
It's so heavy. One...
One and a half, two...
Two and a half, three...
Four... 3.8 ounces, mate, just in the dry blower.
(LAUGHS) Oh, man.
Well, 3.8 plus a half ounce here.
Mate, that's 4.3! That our biggest ever weigh-in.
Well done, mate. (LAUGHS)
The Gold Timers have found $10,750 worth of gold,
but will need to pay Nathan nearly $2,400 for his dry blower.
Considering how this season started for us both,
I think we've taken it up another notch,
and it is... it's paying its dividends.
We're on a bit of a roll now,
and I hope we're gonna smash this target.
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