This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Oh, what the hell? What now?
..the Ferals' season is on the brink of collapse...
Every time everything's running sweet, things are going good,
always something goes wrong.
..forcing them to call in some urgently needed help.
Man, this is not good.
This is your time to prove yourself. All right, leave me with it.
And new recruit Nathan... (LAUGHS) ..could transform their fortunes.
(LAUGHS) You've got to be joking.
Woo! I'm on, man.
You little beauty! Woo!
In Queensland, Jacqui and Andrew broker a deal
with a prospector desperate for their expertise.
I need a bit of a hand to find some new spots.
I need them to find gold for me.
But back-breaking ground... This is nuts.
..could ruin their plans.
Well, that's just great (!)
Shane and Russell search a long abandoned mine...
There's absolutely got to be gold in the wall.
They just don't dig holes like this for love, I'm telling you.
..and hit the richest gold patch of their careers. (BEEPING)
Yeah, another one.
That's about 18 now. OK, keep going. (BEEPING)
You might have a decent one there. Oh, look, I can see it from here.
Oh! Oh, what a beauty, Russell.
We got a really hot week ahead.
It's supposed to be around 42, 44 degrees, and not too much breeze.
Yeah, it's getting too hot out here for Bridget now,
so it's just me and Ryan out here at the moment.
So we still have a lot of gold to find.
It'd be pretty good to get someone out here to help us out.
Ryan's just headed into town to pick up his mate Nathan.
He's going to give us a hand, so I'm hoping this fella works out.
We need to find a lot of gold and not much time left in the season
before it's too hot to be out here.
In Western Australia's wild Pilbara region,
Levi North of the Ferals is putting in a punishing solo shift
on the remote Honey Hole lease.
We've got about a month left in the season
and we need to find about 27 ounces.
So we need to find about an ounce a day to get there,
so we're really hoping that we can just stay on top of this gold
and hopefully there's a few big nuggets in the mix just to take the pressure off.
This season, the Ferals have seldom operated at full strength...
I'm going to get out of prospecting. This is just not working out.
..after team-mate, Rob Beeton, shockingly quit the gold business.
Absolutely the last thing I ever expected with him, mate.
And last week... Hey, Levi, Bridget's just gone down, mate.
Bridget's gone down. ..new team member, Levi's pregnant wife Bridget,
was sidelined by heat exhaustion.
Yeah, I don't feel good though. I just feel really nauseous.
Let's get you back up to the bus, OK, and you can just rest.
With intense heat due to shut down their operation in a matter of weeks,
Ryan's asked life-long friend, Nathan Moncrieff, to step up.
It's good to be back up here, bro.
So how you guys going out there anyway, man?
The heat's coming in, we're at the pointy end of the season
and we've only got about 12½ oz, mate,
so we've got 27½ oz to go. Wow.
Yeah, you've come into a pressure cooker. Yeah.
Literally, mate. Pressure's on and it's getting hot.
Yeah.
Here comes the boys.
Hey, Ryan. Hey, Nath.
Hey. G'day, mate, Nathan.
How are you, man? Levi, is it? That's it.
Mate, nice to meet you. You too. Awesome.
Welcome to site. Thanks for having us out here.
Have a look at the size of this thing.
Ryan's given you a bit of a lowdown on what's happening out here? Yeah.
We need to find a lot more gold than what we're finding now.
Point me where you want me to do, and what you want me to do,
I'll do it to the best of my ability, man. Grab the digger, mate,
and walk it over and start moving some of that dirt. Not a drama, man.
All right. I'm going to saddle up and go and find some nugs.
Beautiful. Go get some gold, lads. Good luck. Let's go. Cheers, boys.
Woo.
I have mechanical knowledge.
Fitter turner by trade.
I can fix anything mechanically.
The feeling of getting gold is pretty amazing.
The old man's put it into my blood to be quite honest.
Just so much fun just coming out and finding some treasure.
Yeah, hopefully we get a good layer of nuggies under there.
These guys need it and so do I.
Tell you what, this heat's getting in already.
I took leave without pay to come up here
so this hopefully will give me something
so I can keep paying off my mortgage, and keep the wife happy.
But Ryan's like a brother to me, man.
I've known him since primary school and he's always there for me
so there's no reason why I can't be here for him.
He's my best mate.
We need a hand here on the ground. He still needs to prove himself.
Just because he's my mate doesn't mean he's straight in the door.
And you know we'll bring him into the team if all works well
and hopefully together we can all find lots of gold.
Having a baby in January, so really need to find as much gold as we can at the moment.
I want to be able to take a couple of months off
while we're having the baby down south and just be there for Bridget
and the only way I can do that is if I find gold.
Well, they've got us on the good dirt so, I tell you what, hopefully we'll be able to make this happen.
What's happened? Hang on.
Oh, no, no, no.
What the (BLEEP)?
(VEHICLE BEEPS)
(ENGINE STRUGGLES)
(CRUNCHING)
Yeah, righto. You gotta be kidding me.
Ah, man, this is not good.
(EXHALES SHARPLY)
It's too (BLEEP) hot anyway, to get my hands in there.
I only just, started man, I can't believe this has happened.
Six more ounces, that's all we need.
Six more ounces.
Plus we wanna keep this reputation going as lease explorers.
What we can achieve in Clermont
is gonna dictate where we end up next year.
We do have to really make this count.
In Clermont, central Queensland,
Jacqui and Andrew have just two weeks
before the fierce summer heat ends their season.
We're not going to have too much time.
Weather's pretty well already here.
Coming up to the end of the season now.
You can just feel that heat.
Jacqui and Andrew have made a marathon 1,000 kilometre trip
after spending the season in far North Queensland,
exploring Australia's wildest goldfield, the Palmer River...
This is our first gig as lease explorers and it's pretty exciting
because we've worked hard to get to this point.
..where they made the biggest gold find of their careers.
Oh, Jacqui, check that out!
Oh, my God! Look at that! Oh, my God!
That's the biggest nugget I've ever found.
We've already hit our 15 oz target.
It's pretty ambitious, but we're going to go for an extra 15 oz.
With their contract in the Palmer finished,
they've had to secure a new exploration job elsewhere
to try and hit their challenging new target.
The main reason to come to Clermont this year is to help out Dan.
He's my good friend and he's had a pretty rough trot lately.
The gold community's fairly small and tight
so we try and help each other out wherever we can.
Hey, mate. Hey, what's up?
Jacqui and Andrew will work Dan's 25 hectare Swiss Workings lease
for the next two weeks.
I need a bit of a hand to find some new spots for, you know,
if I can get a bit more gold before the end of the season. Yeah, OK.
And the season's almost done, it's getting too hot. All right.
Is there any particular area you want us to sort of start searching?
Look, I haven't done a full walk of the lease since I've had it. OK.
If you guys can go out, find gold on the surface out here,
cos when I have found gold on the surface,
I've found it the whole way down to the bedrock.
So we'll see if we can find that surface gold and then you take over from there.
Anything we find, we'll track, plot those GPS co-ordinates for you.
Hopefully we can get onto it straight away.
Now, look, whatever gold you guys find to help me out, yous can keep it.
All right, excellent. No worries. Cheers guys, thanks.
Thank you. Thanks, Jacqui. Talk to you soon. Righteo.
So, we mark down any finds we make and he can work the ground
at a better depth and get a heap more gold out of it.
Having them out here to help me is just...it's awesome.
It means I can stay focussed on an area
where I am pulling some gold out so I can be assured that my bills are getting paid each week.
We had a lemon and lime orchard. We suffered a drought,
we suffered a few hail storms that wiped us out
and it was devastating for us.
We've had to sell the farm and this is what I do to support my family.
I've got my wife and we've got four kids.
This is the only income I have.
I need them to find gold for me, I need it ASAP.
There's that reef just down there.
That's awesome. And look at how long it runs for.
So this is as good a spot as any to kick off. I think we'll find some.
Righto. Let's get into it.
So I'm just doing a little bit of a swing
where I can see this quartz is starting to break out of the ground
in this reef, as Dan was saying there's a lot of gold around these quartz reefs.
So if we can get onto a payable reef, that would be amazing.
(BEEPING)
That sounds all right.
The ground down here is exceptionally hard.
It's a clay that's full of gravel
but it seems to be baked and it's definitely hardened.
Barely even making a dent there.
I've dug rock that's softer than this.
This is proper hard work.
Oh, well, that's just great (!)
(SIGHS)
(BLEEP)
Awesome, just what I needed (!)
Favourite pick too.
So I just snapped my pick trying to get through that rock hard ground.
It's a pretty old pick.
It's paid for itself a million times over, this thing,
but that's really disappointing, mostly cause I don't have a backup.
You got a copy, Jacqui?
Yeah, I got a copy.
I just snapped my pick, mate,
um digging something out of that conglomerate down in the creek.
That ground's just so hard.
It's a bit hard to dig gold out with the pick, let alone without it.
2 00:10:59.480 -- 00:11:03.000 align:middle line:90% position:50% What do you reckon this was? I think it's an old mining magazine.
Magazine? Yeah.
This is where they stored the explosives.
I'd say it'd be around the 40 years old age.
Well, that means there must be a mine somewhere close by
or an open cut. There'd have had to be a mine here.
This is substantial, so there had to be something decent here. Let's go have a look.
That means there's a hole here somewhere.
If there was no gold here, they wouldn't have went to all this trouble.
Shane Calegari and Russell Nash are on the hunt
near the old gold rush outpost of Nullagine.
We've 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.
The pair have left their truck to explore the rugged terrain.
Last week, Shane and Russell's season-long expedition
brought them to Nullagine's legendary goldfields
where local mines once dug up over 100,000 oz of gold every year.
We've got a great chance of finding gold out here.
Yeah, I know we want big gold.
And Nullagine lived up to its reputation...
Oh, that's a nugget.
That's my biggest bit for a long time.
..as the pair found over $5,000 worth of gold.
It's unbelievable.
But, with the end of season closing in,
Shane and Russell need another productive week
to have any hope of reaching their 20 oz target.
We've got to find this target, otherwise it's just game over.
We set the season's target at 20 oz for a reason.
That's because it costs a lot of money to come up here,
the fuel, the cars, the wear and tear, it all adds up.
It's a big trip and it can't be for nothing.
Look at that. So what do you reckon they were doing here?
They got an open cut going here.
This is obviously what the explosive magazine for,
was to blast this particular open cut out.
The ground here's very hard.
They wouldn't have been able to dig this with a machine,
so it all would've had to have been drilled and blasted.
Open cut mining involves blasting and drilling
and is one of the cheapest and most effective ways
of recovering shallow gold deposits from hard rock.
But, what's happened, it's hit water. Yep.
And I'd say the water from that river is gushing in to here
and it's all at the same level.
These guys haven't walked away because there was no gold here.
They've walked away because the water's beat them.
The water is your friend and your enemy.
You need the water to be able to process your gold,
but it's your enemy cos you've got to get it out of your gold mine.
If I spent seven days here I would find a very, very rich ore body.
How are you going to find out? I'm gonna chisel away and pan 'em off.
So what I'm going to do is just work my way along here
and see if I can find us some gold.
Russell's going to go look at the dumps.
He's going to pan it off and see if he can get a colour out of that.
The unprocessed piles of dirt were excavated from the bottom of the pit.
It looks like they've left in a hurry, they've left piles of dirt all over the place.
I'll go through those, sample those
and hopefully they've left something for me.
Many mining operations in Nullagine were abandoned
at the start of the 1980s, when the gold price crashed.
Today it's eight times higher
and ground that was unprofitable then could now deliver a big payday.
I've got a tiny, tiny bit of gold.
I mean there's a colour there, so is it enough?
I'll do the rest and see how I go.
There's absolutely gotta be gold in the wall but a matter of finding it.
They just don't dig holes like this for love, I'm telling you.
This is nice-looking material. I hope there's a bit of gold in it.
I'm hoping to see two or three specks, that's what I'm hoping to see.
If I don't... I should get a colour in this now, but I'm not looking good.
If I've got some gold here, it is very, very fine.
I've got nothing here that's really worthwhile.
I reckon I've got a superfine bit of gold here, but not worth it.
Just not good enough. Yeah, I'm just disappointed with that.
That should have been better. We'll see how we go with this one.
It's a bit different material again so this might have a lot more gold in it.
There's plenty of quartz and that here so we'll see how we go.
Another dud one.
I dunno where Shane reckons all this gold is but it's not here yet.
It's gotta be better than this, otherwise we're in trouble.
Jacqui and Andrew are exploring their friend Dan's lease
in the historic goldfields of Clermont,
but the tough ground is too hard to work by hand.
Hey, mate. Hey, bud, what's happening?
Oh, not too much. I just broke my pick trying to dig a signal
out of that stuff down in the gully there. Yeah, right.
You haven't got anything to help us out? I do.
Yeah, righto. Just take the jackhammer and the generator.
Yeah, sweet as. That sounds awesome.
Last year I met Andy.
He actually rocked up out here.
His brush plate was dragging along the ground on his car
and he popped in to see if we could give him a hand to rip it off.
We just sort of stayed in contact ever since.
I'm hoping that they do find some gold out here,
to help me finish off this season, and get me ready for a new season.
It's so important that we keep pushing towards our target.
We've laid so much money into this trip,
so many out-of-pocket expenses.
Barely making a dent.
Can see why he broke his pick here.
Here, look what I found. Where'd you get that?
Found it in Dan's shed. Nice.
It's gonna make it a lot easier because that ground's way too hard.
Oh, yeah, it's crazy.
(RUMBLING)
Ready? Yeah.
Well, that's easier. Yeah, that is way easier.
To penetrate the ground,
the jackhammer can deliver 1,000 blows a minute
with 30 foot pounds of force.
There we go, now she's coming out.
Yeah, that's much easier.
Look at that, we're out now.
Out.
All right, let's find out what we got, 'ey.
All right, let's make sure it's gold. (BEEPING)
I hope so, because it sounds all right.
Oh, look at that.
There it is, my new scoop.
You beauty. (LAUGHS)
Finally. Well done. Oh, that's a nice nug.
That looks like about three grams. Yeah.
That was worth breaking a pick for.
Finally, a bit of Clermont gold.
We're probably 5½ oz or so shy of our target now,
and this one's got us a little bit closer.
Hopefully it's just the beginning of a good run
and then we can knock over that 30 oz. (BEEPING)
Ooh! Your time to shine, jackhammer.
(LAUGHS)
(BEEPING) Yeah, you're out.
We're out.
(BEEPING)
Come on. Look.
Hey. Check that one out.
The second nugget of the day will add around $300 to their tally.
That's a nice nug too.
That's a ripper. Good job.
Got to be done.
Uh, Levi, Ryan, you got a copy, boys?
Yeah, mate, what's up?
I've got a bit of a problem with this digger.
It was going fine and then it just stopped, mate.
I can't get it to start again. I've had a bit of a look,
but it's too damn hot. I'll have a squiz, see if we can fix it up.
No worries. I'm going to crack on. Good luck.
Righto, mate, cheers.
Oh, man, I've just got into this digger and she's just stopped on me.
So, to me, it sounds like fuel, but it could be electrics and fuel.
I've gotta let it cool down because it's just way too hot.
I can't even get my hands in. I burnt myself already.
I I really hope it's nothing too serious with this digger.
We seriously need this digger going.
Hey, bro.
What's going on, buddy? Not good?
Nah, man, it's, well, not really, cos it's stopped.
So... Yeah, well, mate, we need, we need this working.
Oh, yeah. It's going to make it pretty hard.
I'm spinning out already. I've only just got in and done three cuts.
Do you want to see if you can start her again?
We'll just see if that... Yeah, mate, have a go. Have a click.
Yeah, mate, got nothing. So, nothing at all?
What about any lights or anything? Yeah, I got lights.
I've just got no clicky. You got power? Yeah. Got no starter, mate.
I'm going to give it at least ten or 15 though, mate, let it cool.
I can't get my hands in there, bro. I've tried and I burnt myself so...
Yeah, oh, well, mate, this is your time to prove yourself.
I don't want to put the pressure on you. I know you're -
Nah, mate, I'll put the pressure on myself.
But I really need to be over there on the ground detecting. Righto.
I need to be picking up nuggets, mate,
but I've just got to leave it with you and say best of luck, bro.
All right, leave me with it, go swing. I gotta keep going, mate.
Let us know, let us know, mate, how you go, give us a call.
Best of luck. No worries, thanks, mate.
I know that Nathan's capable.
He's been around machines all his life.
No, I didn't want to be rude to him and run away,
but I need to be on the ground here detecting.
We've got to get an ounce a day at least.
Righto.
In the suffocating heat of Western Australia's Pilbara region,
mechanic Nathan's week-long trial
with the Ferals is off to a bad start.
Loose. There's a busted wire on this solenoid, 'ey.
A solenoid is a valve controlled by an electrical current
which allows diesel from the digger's tank
to flow into the engine.
If it detects abnormal temperatures or mechanical malfunctions,
it stops the flow of fuel to prevent catastrophic engine damage.
The rugged terrain could have dislodged the wire,
cutting off the fuel supply.
Reattaching it could solve the issue.
I reckon that'll be the one, I reckon.
I'm gonna give this a go.
(EXHALES SHARPLY) Hopefully this works.
Come on. (ENGINE STARTS)
(LAUGHS) Yeah, boy.
Oh, thank goodness for that.
Thank goodness for that.
Hey, boys, she's going again.
It lives! Hey, well done, mate.
Oh, man, I'm stoked. That's why I called you up here.
Oh, mate, well, I'm up and going again, man.
I'm going to keep pushing lines so we can keep finding some nuggies.
(BEEPING) Ooh!
That one's screaming. Screaming at me.
(LAUGHS) First scoop.
You ripper.
Ooh, in the hand.
You little beauty.
Nice little chunk.
It's about 3½ grams.
(BEEPING)
Come on, where are you?
Oh, oh, it's in the scoop.
That's a loud one.
Ooh, in the hand.
(BEEPING) Ooh, in the scoop.
Oh, there it is.
It's another nice chunk of gold.
3½ to four grams. We need as much of this as we can get.
We're heading towards 50 degrees in the next couple of weeks
so we really need to get moving and pick up as much gold as we can.
2 00:21:56.760 -- 00:21:58.760 align:middle line:90% position:50% I've done about 15 samples now.
Just not... It's just not what I'm looking for.
It's just...
It looks the part but really it's just rubbish.
I hope Russell's doing better than what I am.
I'm getting sick of this already.
I set this up, throw the dirt through there
and anything that's too big rolls off.
The smaller stuff that I can pan goes straight through there. Let's try another one.
Shane and Russell are searching for gold in an abandoned open-cut mine
near the outback settlement of Nullagine.
Hey. (LAUGHS)
That's what we want. Look at that.
That's with the pan, bottom of the pan and that's where it was.
Shane, look at this. I got colour.
All right, I'm coming there, Rusty.
Have a look at this. What have you got there, Russell? Colour.
Oh, gee whiz. I mean, that was the size of the pan I had. Yeah.
So what do you reckon tonnage that would go?
Probably five grams, six grams. To the tonne? Yeah.
How about we just make a sluice up? Up to you, Russell.
We'll throw a tonne in that, we'll see how we go. OK, well let's go build a sluice. Let's go.
To the tip.
You can find a very good lot of material at an old rubbish tip
in a remote town because it's not worth transporting back to the city.
So they just take it to the tip and it just sits here and rots.
So this is very good for us.
The fine gold in Russell's sample indicates there could be
over $500 of recoverable gold in every bucket of paydirt,
if they can build a sluice to process it with.
We've got some metal, some trays.
And enough gear that I think we can make a sluice out of this.
The bills add up, the mortgage doesn't get any better.
I need to change that, that's why I'm here.
I assured my wife I could come here and make a dollar
and make this work and, if I don't, well, I've gone backwards
and then we're going to be in trouble.
So there's a lot at stake. We've got all the things we need.
Just some gold, eh? Yep, except gold.
The pair need the nearby dirt Russell has sampled
to deliver on the promising early signs.
With this amount of dirt,
hopefully I can get around four, five, six grams, around that figure.
If I get that figure, it would make it all worthwhile.
I'm going to make a sluice tray up so we can pump water
into the top of the trailer and, as it flows down,
that'll bring all that dirt and sand with it.
Instead of Shane shovelling it all, the water will pull the solids
and the gold by itself and it'll actually flow through like a river.
Yeah, a lot of time involved. So we just want to make sure
it's worthwhile, otherwise we're wasting time, time we haven't got.
Here she comes. Is it gonna be enough?
It'll be enough all right and you know...
We've just built a bit of a sluice tray.
We're going to pump water into the trailer.
As the water flows through, it's going to bring material with it.
The gold, because it's so heavy, gets caught in the mat just here
and everything else should just flow off the top.
Like Niagara Falls, here we go. Here we go.
We could do with a bit more water. It's heading down.
At least it's bringing the solids with it.
Probably water flow's the issue at the moment.
Because of the low water flow, only a small amount of dirt
can run through the makeshift sluice at a time.
And with their only pump already running flat out,
it could take hours to process the tonne of paydirt.
Well it's just going to take you ages to get this done now.
So I'm going to leave you to it and I'm gonna go find some gold.
That's the way it is. I'll just work here quietly, that's all.
It's not looking good. Nullagine was meant to be the be all and at the moment it's going to end all.
It's not even going to pay for fuel to get back.
(BEEPING)
That almost sounded like something there.
We definitely have to work hard for it.
It's hard ground and it's really hot out here.
Jacqui and Andrew are battling tough conditions
as they detect a quartz reef in 40-degree heat.
(BEEPING) Yeah, that just sounds like hot rocks.
The detectors love that. Ironstone.
Ironstone rocks, or hot rocks,
contain iron-bearing minerals,
that trigger detectors and sound identical to a gold target.
Nah, see that's gone now.
Getting a lot of ground noise or false signals.
It also happens more when you get the hot weather
and the ground heats up so with weather like this,
where we're punching out sort of, you know, 36 or 38 already,
then the ground heats up and the hot rocks seem just to become even noisier and noisier.
It's pretty important that we get onto some gold quickly.
We haven't got long left out here so every day counts.
The bills don't stop coming in
so the gold can't stop coming in either.
(BEEPING)
It sounds like a target,
but so's a lot of this ironstone in this creek.
This is nuts.
No, it's this ironstone that's setting it off.
Targets are everywhere.
All right, I'm going to have to move off this ground which sucks.
It does look really good here, but it just sounds like there's targets all around me.
The more the day heats up, the more this ironstone heats up
and it's just becoming quite impossible to detect.
So ironstone's a great sign to see when you're chasing gold
but, you know, while it's good to see,
it's no good if you can't work the ground.
We're heading up onto the higher ground
where it's not covered in ironstone, much easier for us to detect.
Here, out of the creek now,
machine's running much smoother already.
That creek was doing our heads in. Too much noise.
(BEEPING)
Yeah, it sounds like I've got a target here.
Time to go a little bit deeper.
Just all full of this rock.
(BEEPING) Sweet. It's out.
(BEEPING)
Oh, ha ha.
Nice.
Perfect.
Got myself a nice piece here. Happy days.
(BEEPING)
That sounds pretty good.
Righto, time to find out.
There it is, look at that. That's a nice nug too.
That's great. It's probably three or four grams.
Up here in this untouched ground, that's a great little bit of gold.
There is a target here, but I'm barely scraping the surface.
(GROANS) Andy, are you on radio?
Yeah, mate, I'm here.
Any chance we could get that jackhammer back out?
Yeah, yeah, it's still about.
I can, uh, bring it over for you if you want?
Here we go, now it's moving.
Yeah, that's better.
Yeah, you're out now.
(BEEPING)
And now it's time for the grand reveal.
Oh, yeah. Look at that.
Beauty.
Nice.
Check that out.
Hey, that's a nice slug, that.
That's gotta be five or six grams there.
That's pretty good, hey. Well done.
That's why it was so deep and so loud.
(BEEPING)
Sounds like another job for the jackhammer.
Jacqui?
Yeah? Got a job for you.
Woo-hoo. Whereabouts?
Oh, yep. Yep, right here.
It's crumbling apart now.
All right. Righto, let's see what we got.
(BEEPING)
Oh, there we go, there's another one.
Woo. You beauty. Awesome. Yeah, this is great.
This is fantastic for all of us. Dan's gonna be stoked. Yeah.
This whole area has just been producing now, hey.
Yeah, I think he's really going to like this.
This is definitely a scrape and detect zone for him. This is great.
Good for him, good for us. Everyone's winning.
2 00:30:25.360 -- 00:30:27.960 align:middle line:90% position:50% Yeah, it's good to have both the machines going again.
I just cleared a nice area for Ryan.
Been picking up a few nuggets there and he's going to swing over that.
In Western Australia's rugged Pilbara region,
the Ferals are running flat out
trying to hit their ounce per day target.
Oh, what the hell? What now?
Hey, hey, fellas, I got a leak.
The digger's got a leak somewhere.
It's throwing out hydraulic oil everywhere.
I'm coming over now to have a look.
And we just got this digger going.
Every time everything's running sweet, things are going good,
always, something goes (BLEEP) wrong.
Far out.
Dude, we've got a proper leak.
Oh, mate. It's out of your main... One of your main rams, bro.
There goes our season target.
What's going on, man?
Oh, (BLEEP). You're kidding me, man. Nah, mate, she's done.
Do you think it's fixable out here?
Oh, dude, unfortunately, man, no. Cos you gotta pull that out, man.
That whole... Yeah. ..rod's got to come out.
There's no way we can do this here. We don't have the equipment.
Can't fix it with a metal detector.
No, that's for sure.
Looks like we're pushing spinny with the eight tonner. Yeah.
Hopefully there's some nugs down there to cover the cost of this debacle.
All right, bro. OK, mate.
So much gold here in the ground to find but, without this machine,
we're not going to be able to get down deep enough to find it.
I don't know. We've just gotta get on the ground,
keep swinging and, yeah, keep our fingers crossed
that we'll find some big nuggets.
I need to find some gold.
I need to find some big gold, or a nice patch.
So I've come out here. I'm just going to scout the area
and see how we go because we're a mile behind.
Nullagine is big gold country, so that's why we came here
but, at the moment, we can't find it.
It's not worth spending time out here for nothing.
We've only got a few days left, so we need to really hit it hard.
Near the gold rush settlement of Nullagine in Western Australia,
Russell is hunting for nuggets
while Shane is running a makeshift sluice to recover fine gold.
We haven't found a great deal of gold so we need to get our tally up.
We certainly won't make our tally doing this
so hopefully Russell's finding gold there.
I want to be able to go home and walk through the door
and show the kids that I found some gold and make 'em proud.
I mean, as a father, that's our goal.
We should be teaching our kids and providing for our kids.
So if they can be proud of their dad, I've done my job.
(BEEPING)
(LAUGHS)
That's a bit of quartz but nothing in it, but, um...
(BEEPING)
I'll give it a hit. This might have a bit of gold in it maybe.
Oh, she's shattered.
Hey, that's gold.
You little beauty, look at that.
Where there's one, there's always more.
That means it's shed from here, that means there's probably a reef here.
(BEEPING)
(LAUGHS) You little beauty, come on, gold.
(LAUGHS) Another one.
Awesome, beautiful bit of gold.
That's a metre and a half from the specimen, so this could be a patch.
It's what we need.
OK, I'll just let this last bit run out
and then it'll clean it up nicely.
Hopefully I can see a couple of little bits of gold in here,
then I'll clean the mats out and see what I've actually got.
Shane's run all 1,000 kilos of dirt through the improvised sluice tray.
Here's the moment of truth for me.
Ooh, there's a couple of little pieces there.
Look at that there. OK, well, I'll pan this off.
I'm quite excited about this.
I'm very excited, actually.
Yeah, gold when it comes out of the ground, it comes out of the ground
in one spot and just spreads out into just a nice little area.
It's called a patch. Once you get onto a patch, your world changes.
It's great. Come on.
What I'm doing now is I'm just going to rinse this out,
pan this off and just see if I can get a colour out of this first mat.
Most of the gold should be in the second mat.
If I get a good colour out of this, or a reasonable colour,
it's a good indication there'll be really good gold at the top
cos this was the bottom mat.
(BEEPING)
Oh, there it is.
It's not big but it's gold. It's another piece.
Within a couple of metres of those two, so it's a patch.
I can see gold.
Great indicator.
We're gonna get a lot of gold out of that second mat too.
How you going there, Russell?
Yeah, looking good, Shane, looking good. What about you?
Well, I've done the first mat, but put it this way,
I'm on the colour. I've got some gold.
Hey, so am I. I think I've found a patch.
OK, Rusty, well as soon as I finish washing up the second mat,
I'll whip over there with my detector and give you a hand.
Righto, see you in a bit. Nullagine, love the place now.
Been, ah, pretty average after the big digger broke down.
So I'm back on the little eight tonner
but beggars can't be choosers
and we'll take whatever we can get at the moment.
The Ferals are battling to recover an ounce of gold a day
after losing their main digger on the Honey Hole lease.
We've just been pushing off a bit of spinifex.
Ryan's just jumped up the end here to have a detect
and looks like he's onto a pretty good target.
I've just come up to, you know, have a bit of a look around up here.
I've got onto a decent target.
You got a copy there, Nathan? Yeah, copy.
Might get you to pop over here and give us a hand for a sec.
Sweet as, on my way. Hear you found something?
Yeah, I've got a target in the ground bro. Sick, man.
Just thought you might want to have a listen. (BEEPING) I got that now.
Yeah, but see at the surface, this is what it sounded like.
(SOFT HUMMING)
That's it. Wow, is that it? Yeah, righto.
Got a bit of a target?
Yeah, bro, bit of spinifex pushing pays off.
Wow, you're nice and deep aren't yous? Yeah.
Come on, Nath. Come on, Nath. This is your initiation.
Let's get this thing out of the ground, boys.
(BEEPING)
In the scoop. Come on.
Come on, nuggy.
(LAUGHTER) Check this out, man!
Oh, yeah. That's gotta be a good four or five grams, easy.
Get out of that hole. Woo!
Well done, lads.
Yeah, man.
You guys stink. Right. They don't call us Feral for nothing.
(LAUGHTER) You beauty. That's fantastic, man.
Oh, well, the boys are out there on the ground.
Hopefully they're going to pick up a few.
We really need a kick in the bum.
We're close to the end of the week.
I might have a bit of a target here.
This is good, it's my first actual real target.
Hey, Nathan, are you on the nuggets over there too, mate?
Yeah, mate, looks like it. I'm digging pretty deep.
I just picked one up about 200 down and I got it in the scoop
so we call this a double hook up, brother.
Ah, that's a bit of music to my ears, boys.
Woo! (LAUGHS) Keep on going.
Yes, sir. Woo.
Ooh, I can feel it.
Ha-ha!
We've got a big bit, lads!
We got a massive chunk.
Ooh!
Look at that.
No way.
(GIGGLES) You're bloody kidding me.
You gotta be joking.
Hey, Levi, boys, woo, I'm on, man.
I've got a stoinker.
You little beauty!
Woo!
On the nuggies. Yeah, pushing spinny and picking up nuggets.
Yeah, lads. (LAUGHS)
What have you got there, Russell?
I've got some more gold.
Look at that. Another one. That's four.
I got some gold out of those mats. It was very, very good.
Hey, we're on the money now.
Things have turned. It's looking good.
This could be a 30 or 40 piece patch. Who knows?
I might have a sound now.
Hey, another one!
Oh, well done, Russell, I'm trying to find one myself here.
I think I've got a target.
It's not in there.
There it is, there.
Hey, Rusty, I've found a piece of gold.
So have I.
I've got 12 already.
You've got some catching up to do.
In Nullagine, Shane and Russell are turning their week around,
with a quickfire series of nugget finds.
Yeah, I think I've got a wee sound here, just a little sound.
Hey, that's 15.
OK, keep going.
Is that still there? Yeah.
You might have a decent one there.
Yeah, I might have. It's a good sign.
I've been digging down here for a while.
But I've just got to get in there.
Yeah, another one.
He might be picking up a couple of fairy farts.
I might have something decent here, you don't know.
Right, that's out of the hole.
That must be a stonker.
You got it? I don't think it's in my scoop here.
(BEEPING)
Oh, look, I can see it from here.
What? What, are you blind? Oh, that?!
Oh, what a beauty, Russell. Well done. This is absolutely fantastic.
I'm still in a bit of shock about it all.
I should have brought a bigger jar, shouldn't I? Ah, put it in the jar!
Big day. Well done. The old timers still in the game.
Biggest nugget of the day too.
Moment of truth, eh?
I'm looking forward to seeing what this weighs. Same.
It's been a hard week.
Yeah, it's just getting hotter every day now.
Yeah.
0.9 of an ounce. That's less than I thought we were going to have.
Yeah, I kinda thought we were going to have a bit more than that too.
Anyway, it is what it is.
It is a pretty good wage really for the work we've done.
Oh, nothing to sneer at, that's for sure.
Didn't get us that much closer to the 30 oz though.
The modest haul leaves Jacqui and Andrew
with nearly 5 oz still to find, with just one week left
on prospector Dan Herlaar's lease.
Have we set our target too high?
We might have cos if that's all we got in the first run
then there's no guarantee we're going do any better in the next lot.
We're going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat - Yeah.
..if we're going to achieve this target in the time we've got left,
that's all I can say.
All we need is one big nugget though, or one rich patch.
Yeah, true. Go hard or go home, that's what we said.
Let's get back into it, I reckon. OK.
We got this.
Ahoy. Hey.
You know what I'm excited about? Having two containers full of gold.
(LAUGHTER) We smashed it, after all that,
you know, digger breaking down, 20 tonner going down
and we still managed to get on the nuggets.
Well, we may as well weigh this gold up and see how we went.
Oh, come on, let's see what we got.
(LAUGHS)
3½ oz.
Now for the big dogs.
Man, there's some colour there. So many specimens man, 'ey.
Hold on, there's one more. Boom.
(LAUGHS) 6½ oz.
Far out, so we'll call it probably six ounces.
Probably half an ounce of quartz and stuff in those. Yeah.
Six ounces, lads. We blew it out of the water.
The Ferals have managed to pull enough gold out of the ground
to keep their season alive.
What's that, about 15 grand?
We wouldn't have this much unless there was three of us doing it.
Thank you very much - Yeah, thanks, Nathan. ..for helping us out.
Nah, it's working out pretty well. It was a good trial week for you
and I think you passed with flying colours. Oh, thanks, man.
I really am appreciative of it.
Too easy. Fantastic.
Welcome to the Ferals. Oh, mate, thank you very much.
Thanks for having me here, man. Cheers, brother.
Thanks for having me up, bro. Thanks for calling me. No worries, mate.
It's either we go find gold or we drink beer.
Go find gold and drink beer at the same time? Done.
(LAUGHS) Yeah.
All right, Rusty, let's get there and have a weigh up.
See how we went. It's feeling pretty good though.
Well, I see gold there, that's a start. How was that patch, hey?
Patch was good, Russell. What a patch.
Just tip it out, let's see what we got.
I don't wanna hear about it. I wanna see it.
About 2.4 oz.
About $5,500 worth. That's what I like to hear, Russell.
I like to hear those numbers.
A successful final few days in Nullagine
have boosted Shane and Russell's tally to over 9 oz.
They'll need their run of luck to continue
to reach their 20 oz target.
Kitty's going all right. We're going well.
We're in the game. Nullagine was a success.
Not a roaring success, but it was successful.
We started shakily and we finished well.
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