This time on Aussie Gold Hunters...
Woo, we have blower!
..the Gold Retrievers work through the night to escape
dangerous summer heat.
A lot of guys go home this time of year, but we can't slow down.
But the decision pushes them to the brink of disaster.
I'm right on the edge here.
The Poseidon Crew make a break-through on Catto's Paddock.
I didn't expect this big block of virgin ground, not the size of it.
The time is running out to find the big nugget
that will save their season.
We're going to end up with the worst gold-tally season ever.
He needs money like we all do.
Survey results for the Goldtimers reveal a potential hot spot.
We might dig in this gully and find the start of a gold reef.
The duo struggle through scorching temperatures
to recover the biggest hole of their season.
I reckon this is our year, bro. We're making some money, man!
It's stinking hot - about 50 degrees in this cab right now.
Air con's not working, given up the ghost.
The old morale at the camp is down a little bit at the moment.
We've got at least 6oz to get before the end of the season,
and it's coming up quick.
Got a lot of work to do to get there.
On their Devil's Cut lease in Western Australia's interior,
the Gold Retrievers, Brad McGhie and Chris Smith,
are excavating soft pay dirt near a quartz reef.
Going through water today like it's going out of fashion.
There's a reason we have a mining season -
three months of the year, it is so hot, you cannot work.
We try and cram it all into nine months.
Really have to push now. 6oz is going to be difficult with the heat,
but we can't slow down.
We're doing the same speed, we're just doing it tough.
We're doing 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for our families,
that's the reason we're here.
We've set this target of 30oz for a reason.
We want to show our families we can do this,
not have to worry about bills at the end of the day.
We've put about 250,000 into machinery costs
and the camp set-up and leases.
It's a huge amount, we need to get some of that back.
Brad, how's your machine going, mate, in this heat?
Not real good, mate. She's starting to get pretty hot, eh.
I'm starting to overheat myself too.
What do you reckon we give them a rest for a while,
but we can't let them sit all day, we've got work to do.
Nah. Nah, that's right.
Pull up and have a bit of a chat about it, eh.
Weather here changes dramatically from winter to summer.
You can get very, very cold days and nights,
but summer, it's stifling hot.
It's killing the machines and it's killing us.
I'm thinking we do a bit of night work.
Yeah, I'm keen. I need a break, it's too hot.
It's stinking hot. Let's do it, that'd be good.
Absolutely. We'll get into it when it cools down a bit.
The only good thing about the heat, it's drying out the ground.
I'll commission the dry-blower.
You need superdry soil to go through.
If it's any dampness, it'll block it up.
It runs a screen deck.
This takes all of the bigger rocks and pushes them to one side
so they don't get caught in our hoppers.
Hoppers catch the finer soil,
it runs down the hoppers through a feed tube,
then into our riffle trays.
Vibrating riffle trays and airflow separate the fine gold from dirt.
The lighter dirt particles run down the trays
and are discarded using a conveyor belt,
while the heavier gold is left trapped in the riffles' grooves.
Since we found the quartz fault, we found lots of specks of gold there.
This machine will pick up finer gold than our metal detectors will.
If we get something out of that, that's a whole new ballgame.
We're going to hook the dry-blower up, get it into position,
do what we've got to do, then we can start mining.
How's that look, Brad? Looks good, mate - perfect.
I'm excited to see it work.
We can run the dry-blower and see what we've got.
Righto, mate, fire her up.
Yeah, boy! (LAUGHS) All righty!
We have blower! All right, we've got three machines going.
I'm in the digger, Chris is in the loader. That's awesome.
How's she looking over there, Chris?
It seems to be feeding really well. Yeah? That's awesome, man.
Finding gold, boy!
Let's hope there's plenty of gold in this fine stuff, eh?
I'm stoked we've got this dry-blower running.
7 tonne an hour, putting good pay dirt through.
I'm confident we'll find really good, fine gold in there.
Only a couple of weeks left in the season, we've got to smash it out.
Brad uses a 25-tonne digger
to excavate pay dirt from the trench they've been digging
before Chris feeds it into their dry-blower using a front-end loader.
Brad and I are smashing out all the tonnage.
We've found a lot of small gold,
but we're sure there's a sign of fine gold in amongst it.
The gold we're looking for won't be picked up by a detector.
Oh, what's going on there? Jeez.
I'm going to jump out and check that driveline -
there's something wrong with it.
Copy.
Hey, Brad, you got a copy?
Yeah, mate.
Just had a blow-out on the blower.
You're kidding me? Nah. The rivets are letting go
on the riffle boxes. It's still a fairly new machine.
Right. I'll pull up, come and have a look.
These things go through extreme vibration,
that works riffle trays down.
We'll get it repaired, but down-time is losing us gold,
so we'll be as quick as we can.
That's going to take us off finding gold for a bit -
that's a couple hours' job.
Let's pack it up for the night and try and get some sleep. Yeah.
Get into it again tomorrow. No worries.
It's down-time that we really didn't need right now.
All right, boys, ready to roll? Yeah, mate.
A late start to our season,
but we've got to make hay while the sun shines. That's the plan.
Let's get started, finally get some good gold.
Get in that machine and get it going. You get started too. Here!
In the state of Victoria's famed Golden Triangle,
the pressure is mounting on the Poseidon Crew
to recover a major haul from Catto's Paddock.
There's been nuggets found up to 1,700oz
in this vicinity, where we are right now, so, who knows.
Until you get it in your hand, it is not proven.
Doesn't matter how high your hopes are,
if it doesn't show up, it's not there, simple.
I've been working ground for 20 years,
every bit of ground is different.
This is no exception.
We're just going to have to spend the time
and adjust little things as we go.
The 50,000-square metre property hasn't been mined in 150 years,
but the giant nuggets it produced
once lured thousands of 19th-century fortune-hunters.
That's not bad. That's probably a 4-grammer.
This ground, the old-timers have hammered it,
dug it all over from surf to bottom, looking with their eyes,
but as our technology evolves, more gold can be found.
It's so turned over, we have to take it all out and detect it
because there could be gold 2 foot off the bottom
or 10 foot off the bottom, we don't know.
Brent uses a 50-tonne digger
to excavate dirt from the bottom of the pit.
Yeah, off you go, Eth.
This is pad material, mate - pad material.
Roger.
Brent's brother-in-law, Ethan, trucks pay dirt in their 40-tonne dump truck
before spreading it with a bulldozer into 15cm-thick pads
for his father, Paul, to detect on.
Oh! (LAUGHS)
Well, that's nice. That has to be 18 grams.
This is why I like being out here.
I like helping the boys, but I just love finding gold.
Last week... I've been dreaming about this moment.
That dream is going to become reality.
..the Poseidon Crew finally broke ground
under the watchful eye of the property owners, the Catto family.
The Cattos have high expectations.
They didn't give this paddock up easy for the last 150 years.
But they found barely enough gold to cover costs,
and with just four weeks left to their season,
the race is on to find the big gold they desperately need
to make target.
There is a possibility the old blokes grabbed all the big gold
and left us with tiny bits, bits that aren't worth digging for.
I don't know what sort of gold we're going to find here
on a continual basis, and it costs a lot of money to do all this.
You've got to have a lot of gold starting to come out of the ground.
Hey, boys? The majority of this hole looks like virgin ground.
I thought they would have done the death over this ground.
Jump out and have a quick look at this, mate.
That is what is sitting on the bottom, the pay layer.
Your gravel is right up here, look at these gravels.
That could be a nugget.
All the gravel layers are evenly compacted and haven't been touched.
I didn't expect this big block of virgin ground.
Not the sheer size of it.
This is what I wake up for, this is what gets me out of bed.
I live to see stuff like this.
I'll try not to get too excited now
cos, never count your chickens before they hatch.
I can understand why Brad is excited right now,
because he's come across virgin ground
right where big nuggets were found.
Pauly, you better get your gear ready, go low, swing low,
go slow, because this is our chance to clean up.
We need to see some gold real quick.
2 00:10:59.920 -- 00:11:03.080 align:middle line:65% position:50% ROB: Man, it's so hot out here, I don't know.
You watch this, mate. (LAUGHS) Oh, bro, look at that!
You want some breakfast?
I'll get the bacon, eh? Oh, man! What are we doing?
That's going to be us if we're not careful - we'll be cooking too.
We need to look after ourselves.
The Goldtimers, Rob Dale and Rob "Turbo" Linton,
are working their Kookynie Lease in remote Western Australia,
battling dangerous summer temperatures
as the end of their season closes in.
Two weeks to go and we've got... 8oz to find.
That's 4oz a week. We've got to hit this target this season.
(MOBILE RINGS) It might be Paddyo.
Yeah, it is Paddy. Results are in, bro.
Hey, Paddy! Hey, mate.
G'day, Rob and Turbo. How are youse doing? Good, mate, how are you?
Four weeks ago, Rob and Turbo hired geologist Paddy Reidy
and his sons to carry out a drone survey on their lease.
We'll have it fly on a grid,
give us an X-ray of what's underneath the ground,
hopefully pick up any hot spots or structures that contain gold.
Using a magnetic sensor,
it generated raw data that's being used to create a map
to reveal any subsurface metal deposits.
Good news, Rob. The processing, that is all done.
All right, mate. We've been waiting for this,
we have been waiting for this!
All right. What's really interesting is that
there's breaks in the rocks.
A lot of gold in goldfields is associated with faults.
Oh, wow. All throughout that zone I've marked out
and the creeks either side
might be worth a shot for you guys to look at.
Awesome. This is where we'll go next.
We can't thank you enough for everything you've done.
Good luck, and I'll be hoping to see some good nuggets.
No worries, mate. We'll head down there right now.
We've had this done to increase the value of our leases.
We'll send the results to mining companies interested in this area,
and see what hits we get.
Let's go, eh? No time like the present.
Meantime, we'll do some mining based on the results.
I'm excited about this. Yeah.
These next couple of weeks are pretty important.
We've got to work our arses off and hopefully hit our target this year.
My missus won't have have me home if we don't hit target.
I could end up living out here.
We've fallen short the last couple of years.
This ain't happening this year.
We've got over 8oz to find,
and we need to at least find half of that this week
to make this remotely possible to achieve this target.
We've got the loader, push-detect.
It's showing that ironstone ridge.
That creek runs towards the end of that.
This could be exciting.
Around 2.5 billion years ago, fault lines formed across this region
when layers of rock collided.
Then, hot, pressurised fluid
carrying gold and quartz from the earth's mantle
travelled towards the surface, where it cooled and hardened,
forming gold-bearing quartz veins.
Turbo's going to take some cuts in through this creek line,
and I'll get in here and start detecting it, see how we go.
The results from the drone survey tells us this could be an area
where there could be a gold reef.
We might dig in this gully and find the start of a reef.
Their 8-tonne front-end loader strips layers of dirt,
exposing virgin ground, which hopefully holds nuggets
from the reef.
When it gets as hot as it does out here,
we try to work smarter, not harder.
Often, the heat of the day dedicates our detecting hours
to the cool areas amongst the trees, means we can keep working
and hopefully, keep finding gold.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) Oh, there's a good target there.
Oh, there's an even bigger target there! (LAUGHS)
I've got two targets right next to each other, you should come.
I will, man.
One there, and listen to that!
Have a listen.
I've got one here, and then, listen to that.
Oh, I like the sound of that, mate! Yeah, good one.
It's hard to scoop this stuff. I know.
That's a big noise.
I can see it. Check it out, look at that!
That's probably 3 grams, man!
Yeah, for sure. Look at that, man!
It's not quite a patch, but two close together like that, far out!
Wicked, man! Oh, mate, what a great start!
Well, chuck him in the jar, bro.
Let me hear that, let me hear it. (CLINK)
That one was louder.
I felt it too then! Cool. On the board, bro, we're on the board!
I'll jump back in the loader. Yeah, mate. I'll keep at it.
Hopefully, we're on a roll.
Two nuggets, hopefully we find another 2,000 nuggets
that size or bigger - we want bigger ones.
It's is our third season, and we haven't hit our target yet.
This is it - third-time lucky, we'll hit our targets.
Tell you what - it's bloody hot out here.
I smell something, eh. (SNIFFS)
Oh, man, something's burning. We don't need this.
What's going on? I smell something burning.
I'm coming over. Extreme hot weather can overheat engines,
causing them to stop moving and eventually seize.
What should we do? If the motor's seized, our season is over.
I've replaced the pop rivets that broke through the vibration.
I've replaced them with bolts.
Hopefully, we don't have that problem any more.
How's it going, Bradley? I've done the repairs.
I don't know how good it's going to be, to be honest with you.
We'll just have to hope that she works.
The machines are fuelled up. Cool.
We're good to go? Yeah.
All right, sweet.
In the heart of Western Australia's goldfields,
the Gold Retrievers are ready to restart their dry-blower
after a costly shut-down.
Fire in the hole! Roger.
The dry-blower is up and running.
Looks like it's going all right, so it's time to go and find gold.
We need to make up time. The dry-blower, Chris will feed that.
I'll jump in the digger and keep digging pay dirt out.
Making target this season is absolutely do-or-die.
That's the bare minimum we need to cover costs.
If we don't make target, we need to make some serious decisions
about whether this is for us.
Hey, Chris, you on-channel?
This section I'm digging seems to just be big chunks of quartz.
That's going to give us problems with the dry-blower.
Yeah. I'll go and have a look, eh.
All right. Let us know, eh.
If the quartz-heavy pay dirt chokes their dry-blower,
the motor could fail.
You need fine dirt to run these, you can't use the quartz-heavy dirt.
All the chutes are blocked. If I open out the vents any more,
it'll dump a load of dirt, and gold will flow off the riffles.
Hey, Brad, you copy?
Yeah, mate, got you.
I've had to shut it down again, it's just not working for us.
We'll have to push into detecting.
We've got to find gold, we can't stop working.
Having to shut down the dry-blower was a huge blow.
The season is coming to an end, we don't need these set-backs.
It's the most efficient way for us to find gold.
We've got to continually adapt to the changes in the ground,
and stop wasting time.
With the dry-blower sidelined, the only option left for Brad and Chris
is to spread excavated dirt into pads and detect them for nuggets.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES)
Oh, there's a nice-sounding target!
Something's in there.
Ooh, it's in there. That's a very clear sound.
Oh, there it is.
Look at that.
It's very coarse gold, so it hasn't moved far at all.
There could be a lot more where this came from.
What have you got there, old fella? Oh, very nice!
Funny-looking, isn't it? Was that embedded in rock?
It looks like we cracked it out of some rock. Wow.
We're finding gold, that's the main thing.
I'll get back to it. Keep finding gold!
The stuff I'm digging out here is hard rock.
That gold looks like it's come out of rock.
I'm getting more of that stuff out now,
so let's hope that that's full of gold.
You're in some of the biggest nugget-producing ground
on the planet, and you've got a massive chunk of virgin ground.
How could you not get excited?
Over 2,000km south-east, at Catto's Paddock,
the Poseidon Crew have discovered a patch of untouched ground
after two weeks of mining.
Brent is so excited about it, but it hasn't yielded.
Hey, Pauly, how's it going over there, mate?
To be honest, I'm doubting my abilities.
What, so, you've got nothing?
Mate, I'm sorry to burst your bubble.
I can't believe that!
There's still a chance, still a bit of a pad to go.
There could be a big chunk sitting there.
Generally, virgin ground is our best shot.
It happened with us at Slip Up, where out popped at 45-ouncer.
It happens time and time again.
It's been alarming for me,
but more alarming for Brent and Ethan, that's their livelihood.
I'm glad I'm not the one that's paying the bills
or picking up the pieces.
How're you going, you got anything?
No, buddy - nothing at all, pal.
No good.
Bit of a disappointment, Brent - nothing yet.
Gold mining, I don't know - sometimes it can test you.
You've got nothing off this, Paul? No, mate.
I can't believe this! Most of that was virgin ground, not a piece.
I'll get in the hole, maybe there's something there.
Hopefully, buddy, hopefully.
There should have been gold, should have been a lot of it.
There was that much virgin ground, we should have been getting gold.
This is starting to tell a story.
What I'm seeing is starting to set alarm bells off.
Eth, do you want to come down here? I want to show you something.
Yeah, mate, I'm on my way now.
In some of the richest gold ground in the world, to not get a piece,
I can't believe it.
Yeah, buddy? See that line run through there?
That is all virgin gravels. Yeah.
They've sunk their shaft all the way down there.
See the edge? Virgin ground, dug ground.
They've taken dirt off the bottom, checked it for gold,
and there's nothing there.
I believe, if we don't get gold around this area here,
we've got to go back where we started.
There's no gold now, but 10', 15' over there, there could be.
Just keep going.
I tell you what, we'll keep digging this ground,
but if gold don't turn up very shortly, we're going back.
We've got piss-all gold this season, I want to get some gold.
It's never going to be a great time to dig with no gold,
but while we're there, let's keep going.
I don't think Ethan understands the pressures I'm under.
I've sold a big licence to come here.
I need to find out what's really here.
What's going on, man?
It's overheating. Is it? Oh, I can smell it. Far out.
Ah, I'm spewing.
Let it run for a while.
It's just hot. We'll get it going when it cools down.
At the Goldtimers' Kookynie Lease,
high temperatures are causing the team's front-end loader
to overheat.
I was in the cab, and I could smell this burning smell.
Raced around, and all the coolant's coming out of the overflow.
We don't want this to blow up, that's the last thing we need.
If I didn't notice it, we would have ran out of coolant,
and that motor would have seized.
I'm not surprised - it's over 40. We're struggling.
It's a couple of hours we won't be pushing.
Who knows how much gold we won't be finding?
We've got to find something else to do, so we'll do some sampling.
This is our 151 dry-blower. It's easy to get around,
and you can do a tonne an hour, gives a good sample.
By processing stockpiled dirt, they're hoping to identify
the richest areas of their new target site.
We're shovelling dirt into the hopper here.
That's feeding down into the riffles.
That's where we'll catch gold if there is any.
Getting hot out here, eh? Yeah, mate, I'm sweating already.
She's about 40 degrees at the moment.
We'll take this in turns, keep an eye on each other,
make sure we don't get heat exhaustion.
I'll get us both a drink. It's stifling out here.
Got to be 40-plus. We've got to keep our fluids up.
You don't want to pass out out here, you'll end up in a world of trouble.
We're motivated to keep working cos we've got families
relying on us to bring home some money.
One good score could pay our mortgages off.
We'll shut him down, eh? OK.
See how we went.
We can make quite good money out of .3 of a tonne.
Process a lot of tonnage, it adds up to a lot of gold really quickly.
We'll know shortly if there's anything going on here.
Nada.
Yep. Well, it is what it is, mate.
We can at least tick it off the list.
It's disappointing. We put about a tonne through,
and there was nothing in there um, spewing.
All right. Well, I need to go and get a drink. Yeah, for sure.
Well, that's a bust.
The unsuccessful dry-blowing stint has cost Rob and Turbo three hours.
A hell of a lot of hard work, in the heat.
It can reach nearly 50 degrees out here.
We don't have too much left in this season.
It's just getting too hard to work.
CHRIS: Just starting up the lighting tower, it's getting dark now.
We'll get some light on the subject and continue on.
Boom! Hey, Brad, can you see clearly now the darkness has gone?
I'll just keep digging, and make it easy for you, shall I?
Back to work, you've got no excuses.
On their second night shift this week,
Brad and Chris have gone back to spreading pads to detect
after the ground became too coarse for their dry-blower.
I'm going to detect this while Brad's stockpiling for me.
A lot guys go home this time of year because it is so hot.
It drops up to 10 degrees at night,
just good enough for machines to run all night.
I'm not prepared to lose money.
I've got a family and kids, so making target is do-or-die.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES) Oh, I've got a target!
We had a really quiet period where we weren't finding much,
but switching to the night shift and getting more energy,
we're finding a few more pieces, which is really nice.
Tiny little piece but it makes a big sound.
No time like the present.
Let's lay more dirt out and see if I can pull a few more nuggets.
I'm getting out of the cab, get a bit of fresh air.
It's early in the morning now.
Got to be careful - it's easy to get complacent.
Working at night, your body clock's not used to it,
so your body gets tired.
There's a signal there.
Most of the gold we're finding seems to be embedded in this rock.
It looks a lot different to the other stuff we're finding.
I've got it in the scoop now.
There it is there, stuck on a bit of rock.
Oh, look at that. It looks so different.
That's about, I don't know, 3, 4, grams there.
Yeah, starting to make some money.
The latest find could add over $300 to their tally.
It looks like we're getting back on track.
I'll keep moving, this is great.
(CLUNK)
Hey, Brad? I think I've hit the edge of the pit.
Hang on, just wait there. Hurry up, dude.
Jesus, mate! I'm right on the edge here, aren't I?
Yeah, you're off the edge, eh. Argh! Can you get out?
Yeah, I'll get out the other side.
Just be careful, cos that wheel's off the ground. All right.
Jeez! I don't know what happened with the lights,
it must have tripped out.
That's the scariest time I've had out here.
If you were 2 metres this side, this thing would upside-down in there.
Yeah. Let's call it a night, mate.
We've been digging for absolutely no gold at all - at all.
That virgin ground, there was no gold.
It's just the way the cookie crumbles.
After a full day's mining, the Poseidon Crew have found no gold,
and are still over $600,000 short of their 350oz season target.
Where we started, we're getting gold consistently on every pad.
Since then, it's absolutely turned to crap.
We've got storms rolling in. Hopefully, it misses us.
It makes the ground superwet and muddy to dig.
We've got a few challenges.
CAYDEN: Dad's got me here cos Pop can't be here at the moment.
I'll try to fill Pop's shoes, out detecting.
Multiple pads, and we haven't gotten a single bit of gold.
That pad's just done.
Nothing off it?
Yeah, no gold.
Not good enough. I'm going to make a change, make it fast.
Righto, that hole's done, mate.
We're going to go back to that start.
As it stands, we'll end up with the worst tally season ever.
We need to get on the gold.
Just one of them things.
He needs gold, and needs money, like we all do.
The gold through here was sort of scattered,
there was no pattern to it.
We've got to get that out of the ground,
I think this is our best chance.
Over a week ago, the team broke ground at the lease's midpoint
and dug westward, filling the excavated dirt back in
after detecting.
We're finding the edge, where we first started digging.
But Brent has now returned to that starting point
to dig in the opposite direction.
I'm getting electrical interference.
They can make it take double the amount of time
it usually would take
cos you hear a sound, and you've got to double-check it,
things like that.
The increased static electrical charge in storm clouds
can trigger metal detectors to create false signals.
I'm going to detect the overburden over here.
I've jumped on this pad to help Cayden get through it.
Those storms could hit any moment and wash us out.
(DETECTOR OSCILLATES)
It's not moving around - there. Give us a listen, Cayd.
That sounds all right.
Hack at it, in case it is a piece of gold.
It should be out now, you're into the old pad.
Surely.
Well, it's out.
I see it. It is a bit of gold!
Hey, hey! There we go, finally. That's gold, Ethan.
That's a nice piece.
What's that, you reckon? Just under an ounce.
Well done! I reckon you're about right.
Look happy, mate. You look stunned! It's good.
He hasn't seen it for days. Finally!
If we get that off every hole, we'll be laughing.
We have to keep giving the machine a rest.
We're good for a cut or two,
then it's safer for us to park the machine and let it rest.
We can risk killing it.
Over 2,000km north-west, the Goldtimers are struggling
to keep their overheating front-end loader running.
It's not good for the machine to be working it in 40 odd-degree heat,
especially old machines like this.
It overheats, then bang, your motor's blown up.
Our season could be over.
We've got 8oz to find in two weeks. The pressure's on for us.
Whoa - that's a big target!
That's a BIG noise.
She's out.
Oh, it sounds good.
Oh, there it is. (LAUGHS) Look at that chunk!
That's got to be 7 or 8 grams, I reckon.
Bro, I just found nuggy!
Yeah, boy! How big?
I reckon it's 7 or 8 grams.
That's awesome, man. This feels great.
We're working our butts off in the heat, it's just amazing.
We can see that this target is reachable.
This is the year we're going to hit target. (RATTLES JAR)
It's sounding really good. Awesome.
Three of them a day, we'll be on target.
We've only just started opening this ground up,
we've got a lot of ground to open up.
That's a good signal!
(GRUNTS)
I need some water.
There's big risks, working out here in the heat.
You can easily go down with heatstroke.
It's really harsh conditions. You've got to keep your water up.
This is ridiculous - one of us is going to end up getting sick.
I need to get this nugget out.
Even just digging a hole from detecting, just that extra effort
can really take its toll on you.
It's not the ideal weather for doing what we're doing,
but we've got a target to chase, and we're determined to reach that.
It's out.
It sounded like a good nugget.
Oh, my God!
Far out!
That is one clean, worn-to-worn bit of gold.
Got to be at least 6, 7 grams. That is beautiful.
I've got another piece, man - a really nice piece, about 7 grams.
That's awesome. I'm absolutely wrecked, I don't know about you.
I was watching you have a dig over there.
It's hot out there, it's hot now.
It's hard on your body and your machines as well,
but when you're pulling out nuggets, it's all worthwhile.
2 00:35:36.160 -- 00:35:39.640 align:middle line:90% position:50% That's a good sign that we need to call it quits for the night.
I'm going to try and get this thing out, I'll be real careful.
Chris has had a narrow escape that's left his 12-tonne loader stranded
over the pit's edge.
I really don't want it hanging on the edge all night.
I'll give it a go, but I've got to be careful.
This close to the edge,
the ground could collapse underneath the machine's weight...
Keep it straight, mate - keep it straight.
..causing Brad to fall 10 feet into the pit.
Keep her coming, keep her coming.
Keep it coming.
Yeah - yeah, you're up. Woo!
Yeah, boy!
Anyway, let's call it a night, eh?
You got very lucky tonight, someone's watching over you.
Someone has to be watching over me. I need a beer.
(BIRDSONG)
Bit cooler today - perfect opportunity
to go through these finds.
There's hours' worth of concentrate there. Yeah.
The pair rinse out the material trapped in the sluice mats
before panning it off to check for gold.
We're doing something to try and shore up a future for our families.
Hopefully, it pays off.
We're pulling out all stops - everything we've got, we're using.
Trying a bit of everything, aren't we?
There's one.
Give me more. Coming right up, buddy.
More gold, please!
Wow, look at all that! That's just one mat.
We've still got bottom-level stuff to go through.
Finer stuff should be there. Yeah.
We've got four or five concentrate boxes to go through.
I reckon this will be a good weigh-in. Great sign.
The amount of effort we put in, doing the night shift, is huge.
We'll run the rest of it through, and go and do a weigh-up, eh? Yeah.
Sounds like a plan. That's awesome, man.
It was a very challenging week-and-a-bit,
I'll tell you that right now.
It started off all right. Then it turned to frustration,
I can assure you.
Over 2,000km east, the Poseidon Crew have failed
to break their big-nugget drought at Catto's Paddock
with just three weeks left before the end of their season.
All right, for the small boys,
we've got 1.62 - yeah, 1.62.
Cayd, you got the bigger ones, mate? I do.
There you go. All right, that's Pop's one.
Yep. That then brings it up to
2.23, yeah? Yeah.
Then, throw that one on, brings it to 3.05.
Yeah.
That's not fantastic.
We've got to get better results than this.
With one nugget, it could be anything, it really could.
The haul barely covers their running costs,
and still leaves them a long way off their 350oz season target.
With the results we're getting, we ain't going to get there.
Something's got to happen, we're going to make it happen.
Great work, mate - it's coming in.
Same as always - you're doing a good job. I'm off.
Well done, boys.
Oh, bro - water! (LAUGHS)
Give us some. Oh, yeah.
Woo!
It's good water. (LAUGHS) It is.
Rob and Turbo have one week left before rising temperatures
make it too dangerous to continue.
Time to do the weigh-up. It sure is.
They need at least a 4oz return
to stay on track for their 20oz season target.
Do the honours, man.
1, 2, 3.
It's looking good, it's looking good! 4.
That's just under 4.8.
Hang on a minute, I forgot about these three. (LAUGHS) Dude!
Yeah. That's 4.8.
Man, that is our biggest-ever weigh-in! Making some money!
That's got to be nearly six grand each, man! (SIGHS)
3oz to go or something. Just over 3ozs, we might hit season target.
I reckon this is our year, bro - this is our year.
The phone call home is going to be a special one.
We made about 12 grand between us this week.
That's our biggest payday out here yet.
All this hard work, it's finally paid off.
Can't wait to give the missus and boy a ring,
let them know how much we made.
We made six grand each this week.
That's going to help pay a few bills back home, so, happy days.
I'll lift this up, open that Esky up, grab us a couple of beers.
Well, mate, I think we have well and truly deserved this. Definitely.
Whew! Cheers, mate. Cheers, my bros.
(LAUGHS) Mm!
Hey, big fella. How'd you go, mate?
Got some pretty good results out of that panning. Good to hear, mate.
I found a couple of nuggies.
Did you? Yeah, some hooters!
We're doing all right! Check that out.
Aw, that's awesome! They're good.
Good-sized nuggets, those ones. Yeah, man.
Stunning. Let's do a weigh-up.
You got the stuff from panning? Absolutely.
I've got our stuff from detecting.
After four hours of panning,
Brad and Chris are ready to check the results of a challenging week.
This is going to be exciting.
I think you'll be surprised, what we got out of the pan. Ready?
This is from detecting. Yeah.
(LAUGHS)
Hang on.
90 just out of the detector.
That's all right. Impressive, really good.
Wait for it.
This is all dry-blower, eh? Yeah.
140... 152!
That's awesome, man. (LAUGHS)
That nightshift work paid off.
Definitely paid off.
Brad and Chris now need just over half an ounce of gold
in their final week to hit their $75,000 target.
That's really got us back on track now.
I think we're going to make it, but we need to keep pushing.
We can't get complacent, we've still got a lot to do.
We really need to keep pushing hard and try and make target.
Good week, man. Absolutely. Let's go and have a beer.
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