[Jeffrey Turnell] You got a few minutes?
[Parker Schnabel] What's up?
[Jeff] Well, my biggest thing is,
you know, we're getting pretty late into this trip.
We've seen some pretty good stuff, but, uh,
we haven't jumped on anything yet.
And it's, uh, got me kinda worried.
Your season's coming pretty fast.
[Daniel Etheridge] Listen, the thing is, man,
the reality is, you still haven't actually chosen what type of plant you want.
We should probably be at that stage by now.
If I knew which one I want, we wouldn't be in the [bleep] country.
That's why we're on this trip.
[Dan] Oh, I know it is, but...
...we're quite a long way into it.
Surely, like, if you can make that decision,
then we can move on to the next step
and, like, get the ball rolling, right?
I'm leaving.
Don't tell me what to [bleep] do, Danny.
[opening theme music playing]
This is the most time I've ever spent anywhere that was, like,
next to the open ocean.
Yeah, Alaska's all, like, inner coast, you know, like,
inlets and fjords.
[narrator] Nine years ago, Parker Schnabel
left his grandpa's claim in Alaska
to find big gold in the Yukon.
[Parker] 3,362.
- [all cheering] - [man] Good job, buddy.
[narrator] Now, after mining over $70 million in gold,
he's betting his fortune and reputation
on a new venture back home in Alaska.
It's a weird point where...
you have to decide to quit while you're ahead,
or do you double down and get lean and mean?
And that starts with a wash plant.
You know, wash plant's the heart of your operation.
Are we gonna go visit our favorite South African today?
You know shaker decks inside out, so why do you wanna see this one?
I'd like to cut... talk myself out of a trommel if I could,
because they're more complicated than a screen deck is.
[narrator] After four weeks searching for the perfect plant in New Zealand,
Parker still hasn't pulled the trigger.
Fairbanks is gonna be full of a whole lot of surprises,
lots of clay, lots of very difficult-to-recover gold.
And, you know, to buy the wash plant
that can deal with all of that,
be... hype production, and be portable...
...you know, it's a huge challenge.
[narrator] So far, Parker has looked exclusively at trommels,
known for their ability to handle clay-laden ground.
This sets a very high standard for what we're looking for.
[narrator] But...
- Oh, [bleep]. You've got two more plants running here. - [Louis Nel] Yeah.
[narrator] ...after spotting a shaker deck at miner Louis Nel's,
Parker is wavering.
I think we should come back. I'd like to see a screen deck.
You and I both know screens inside and out.
Parker really likes shaker decks.
But, if he starts to sort of change his mind
about the way he wants to mine Alaska now,
it will be quite a big U-turn.
And that could have ramifications down the line.
[narrator] The team are returning to Louis Nel's
gold-rich, 500-acre claim near Ruatapu.
All right. Let's go find Louis.
[man] You guys see what I'm saying?
- [Louis speaking] - [Parker] Yeah, yeah.
- [Tyler Mahoney] Hi, Louis. - [Louis speaking]
- [Tyler] Yes. - [Louis] Good.
[Parker] I know, we just couldn't resist coming back and checking out
- some of your other wash plants. - [Louis] Oh?
- You got so many of them running around here. - [Louis laughs]
[Louis speaking]
[narrator] Kiwi miners favor trommels to process
the country's clay-ridden pay.
Louis is the only miner they've met who uses a shaker deck.
[Parker] Our screen decks in the Yukon have gotten pretty, like, specialized
and they're all very similar, and I wanna see if you've done anything different.
- Mind if I hop up there and check it out? - [Louis speaking]
[narrator] Shaker decks are renowned for their durability
and compact design.
Spray bars mounted on the vibrating decks
wash the gold from the rocks,
which is then sorted through a series of screens.
Shakers often struggle to wash sticky clay.
And tailings can be expelled
before all the gold has been recovered.
[Louis speaking]
[Parker] Right.
Well, there's no way to see them run like running them yourself.
Do you mind if I hop in there?
It sounds like they probably use this for mostly, for like,
material that's pretty easy to wash.
- Cleaner material. - Yeah, but once I get in the hoe here,
I've gotta run and get in, but ask him about
if they'll send a couple loads
- of the dirtier clay stuff. - See what it does?
Yeah. He might not want to, but ask him.
[Jeff] Yeah. No, I'll ask him for sure.
I know Parker's got some ground, you know,
in Alaska and it's got clay in it,
and I was curious if maybe we can run some ground through here
- with a bit of clay in it. - [Louis] Yep.
Perfect, well, we'll let him run this and we'll go grab some.
Yeah.
If you're on ground that's difficult to wash,
then everybody's gonna say, "Get a trommel".
But, screen decks are what we know.
A lot of our parts would be... interchangeable,
but ultimately gold recovery has to overshadow those things.
You know, the ground in Fairbanks,
there is one spot where we hit this, like,
kind of a false bedrock layer with quite a bit of gold in it.
And that was, like, really sticky, nasty clay.
And recovery with a screen deck is gonna suffer.
You know, you get a lot more bang for your buck
in terms of yards an hour our of a screen cage, too, like,
the equivalent size screen versus a trommel,
is a huge factor difference.
[Jeff] So, this material down here
is the closest I think we're gonna get
- to the ground of Parker's up in Alaska. - [Louis] Yeah.
[Jeff] Can we take some of this and run it through the shaker?
Perfect.
[Jeff] Oh, yeah. Perfect. There's the good stuff.
Right on.
[Jeff on radio] Hey, uh, Parker.
Um, I've got some, uh, ground from the, uh, bottom pit there.
Do you wanna start running that through now,
we'll start doing a bit of, uh, tests, see how it does?
Copy that.
[narrator] Parker has just three weeks left
to find the perfect plant and ship it home
in time for the start of Alaska's mining season.
[Tyler] Starting to feel a little bit of pressure,
so is Jeff, so is Danny.
We don't have time to waste.
If Parker wants to start mining in Alaska this year,
he has to start making some big decisions and ASAP,
and he's just not doing that.
I'm just hoping that after today,
we can at least narrow it down in some way or another.
[Dan] This place is the best opportunity to make some decisions
about what the wash plant is.
So if we can't, then I think we've got problems.
Or Parker has problems.
[Tyler] Danny! Danny, come look at this.
- Come here! - [Dan] What is it?
- [Dan] Gold? - No, look at it.
- [Tyler] It's... how do you say it? Pounamu? - [Louis speaking]
- [Dan] Oh, wow. - [Tyler] How stunning is that?
[Dan] That's quite a lump, huh?
- [Louis] Yeah. - [Tyler] It's huge.
[Dan] What's the deal with that? Is that a little,
- a little bobby bonus, Louis? - No.
[Louis speaking]
[Dan] Oh, wow. Does it mean a lot to them?
[Louis speaking]
- [Dan] Oh, gotcha. - Yeah.
[Dan] So are you taking it back to him now, is that what the...
[Dan] Yeah.
[Tyler] I can take it if you want.
You're busy with the... I can do it.
- [Tyler] Yay. Dan, you wanna come? - [Dan] Yeah.
- Nice. - [Dan] Go ahead, grab it.
- [Louis speaking] - [Dan] How heavy is it?
- [Tyler] It's [bleep]. - [Louis speaking]
[Dan laughs]
- [laughing] Oh, my God. - [Louis speaking]
- [Dan] Don't [bleep] drop that. Is it heavy? - [bleep] heavy.
[Dan] Are they gonna be, like, super pleased to see this, Louis?
- [Dan] Oh, really? - Yeah.
[Dan] Is that worth, is that worth a few quid?
[Tyler] Like, thousands?
[Louis speaking]
Yeah, okay.
- [Dan] All right. - Let's do it.
Hit the road.
[Tyler] I'm excited. What a nice little adventure.
[narrator] Sacred to the Maori people,
the green stone gives the South Island its name,
Te Waipounamu, the place of pounamu.
In 1997,
the government decreed it was owned by the Maori
and any found must be returned to them.
[Dan] This the right way?
[Tyler] So, it's down this road.
I think that's gonna be a hill coming up, we're gonna head down it.
[Dan] Wow, we are out in it.
- Look at that. - We are in the sticks.
[narrator] Tyler and Danny head deep into the Kaimata River valley
to locate Maori pounamu hunter Te Rua.
[Dan speaking]
- [brake clicks] - [Dan] All right.
- [Tyler] A bit eerie. [laughs] - [Dan] A little bit.
Hello?
Te Rua?
Hello?
This is a bit small, but...
...it's a nice little plant.
I'd like to make it work.
[narrator] At Louis Nel's,
Parker is running a test to determine
if the shaker deck can recover gold
from clay-ridden pay.
On Indian River, we usually don't run into too much,
like, really sticky material, but...
...it's like this kind of stuff when we do,
springs don't like it much.
[Jeff] I'd like to see what the tailings look like,
coming off the end of the conveyor.
Then we'll know if it's working or not.
There's quite a bit of, uh, grit left on there.
This is what happens when, uh, we're not getting a good enough wash.
Um, it actually leaves material behind on these.
And over a course of a day, that's quite a bit of material you're losing,
so you could lose a lot of gold.
[Parker] If you can get the material washed,
screens are the way to go.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel and wash plant engineer Jeff Turnell
are testing a shaker deck
to see if can process clay-ridden pay.
But so far, the results aren't good.
Been watching the material go through.
And, you know, there's a few rocks
with a bit of, uh, material still left on them.
And, obviously, you know, over a course of a day, that's...
...possibly a bit of a loss, right?
- Well, the problem is on bedrock. - Mmm-hmm.
That's where the gold's sitting, right?
[Jeff] Kinda had a look at the machine,
and I think I can come up with a bit of a concept
to get a little bit more wash up top.
See if we can eliminate some of this, just to see.
- That's why we're here, man. Try [bleep] out. - Yeah.
I personally like shaker decks more than trommels.
And I know Parker really does like shaker decks.
So I think if I can prove to him that it can wash that material as well,
then he might consider it.
[Louis speaking]
[Jeff speaking]
[narrator] Louis's shaker has a series of spray bars
that loosens pay from the rocks.
Jeff plans to add a pre-wash with much higher pressure,
that should break up the clay and wash the rocks clean.
The thought process is that...
...if you can get the material washed
before it gets to the screen deck,
then the screen deck is just classifying the material.
And so what Jeff's talking about doing,
is a very valid experiment to be running.
[Jeff] All right, so, an inch and a half hose,
that's kinda the first thing I'm looking for.
- [Jeff] You have some hose? - [Louis speaking]
[narrator] Short on time, Jeff must improvise.
[Louis speaking]
[Jeff] Um, do you have any nozzles or any pipe fittings or anything?
[Louis speaking]
[Jeff] That'll work.
Can I bend this up a little bit?
Parker's brought me here to be his wash plant guy.
If we go through this trip
and we don't find what Parker's looking for,
it's a ton of pressure. It adds a lot of pressure.
Let's try that. Fit in there.
[Jeff] Yeah, I mean, it's not ideal,
but I just wanna show Parker that if we get a little bit more pressure
- in there, a little more water volume. - Yeah.
- It will, uh, it will help. Yeah. - [indistinct]
Maybe we'll be able to shoot Parker from here.
[laughs]
[Jeff] Perfect.
[Tyler] Hello?
Te Rua?
[narrator] 30 miles from Louis's claim,
on the banks of the Kaimata River,
Tyler and Danny search for pounamu hunter Te Rua.
Look, there he is, down there.
[Dan] Oh, yeah.
- [Tyler] Hello. - [Te Rua Mason in Maori] Greetings.
- I'm Tyler. - [in English] Te Rua. You can call me T.
- [Tyler] Nice to meet you, T. - That's what I'm told.
The reason we're actually here is because we found
- a quite impressive pounamu stone. - [Te Rua] Oh, yeah?
I'll be willing to receive it on behalf of our people.
[Tyler] What is it about pounamu?
'Cause it has such a strong connection to your culture, doesn't it?
Pounamu is, um, brought through all of our histories.
We started as a nomadic people,
a lot of heirlooms have been passed down, are all created out of pounamu,
and was all, um, transferred of that energy through the pounamu,
handed down from generation to generation to generation,
to, uh, where we are here today.
And your tattoos are impressive.
- Yes, they are, thank you. - Must be a lot of meaning behind them.
My facial one talks about, um, our family connection to the pounamu.
- Wow. - [Te Rua] Um, so.
- [Dan] Can we show it to you, then? - Yeah.
[Tyler] So, it's just here.
- Is that a good sized one? - [Te Rua] Yeah, that's nice pounamu.
On behalf of our people, I'd like to thank you very much.
[Tyler] Thank you.
It'd be cool while we're here, we actually got to go prospecting for pounamu.
- Would that be possible? - Yeah, I think so.
It's a good day for it.
[Dan] How do you come upon it?
[Te Rua] You're looking for those splashes of green,
where somebody's just got a paintbrush and just flicked it.
But, you know, without it being a hocus-pocus sort of story, it's, uh,
sort of like love.
Some people can search for it their whole life
and they'll never understand what it's about.
But when looking for a piece of pounamu,
once you find it, there's a connection between you and the stone.
It's just something that's meant to be.
Is it true that pounamu and gold are found together often?
[Te Rua] Uh, that seems to be the way.
[Tyler] Do you mind, actually, if I get my metal detector out
and have a prospect for gold?
I think it'll be a perfect opportunity.
[Dan and Tyler] Cool.
[Tyler] All right, I'm gonna turn this on.
[metal detector beeping]
Well, just make your way up around here
and you can have a bit of a hunt. You might get lucky.
[Tyler] Awesome, I'll follow your lead.
This will be cool if we could find some gold and some pounamu.
[narrator] Gold and pounamu
formed around the fault line between tectonic plates.
When these collided to create the Southern Alps,
the gold and pounamu were also pushed up.
Since then, glaciers have plucked both from the rocks,
carrying them down to the rivers together.
[Tyler] So when the big floods come through,
- it must just refresh it all. - [Te Rua] Yup, refreshes it, start again.
[Tyler] So after big rains, you guys tend to come down?
- [Te Rua] Definitely. - [Tyler] Do you ring the boss up and say,
"I'm not going to work, I'm going hunting"?
[Te Rua] Well, no, I tell the boss that I'm sick.
[Tyler] Yeah. [laughs]
- [metal detector beeping] - [Tyler] Oh.
[Tyler] Oh, goodness, I've actually got a signal.
Well, I didn't think we're in nugget country.
- Do people find nuggets here? - [Te Rua] We're in nugget country.
- Are we? - [Te Rua] Yes, we are.
[Tyler] We'll just scrape it.
- [Dan] Oh, [bleep]. - [Te Rua] Oh, there it is, eh?
[Tyler laughing] What is that?
It's like an anchor or something.
Okay, I'm just gonna have a break from that.
I wanna concentrate on the pounamu,
I can't do two things at... oh!
Oh, that's a leaf.
[Jeff] Big plan here is to make sure that
the material comes out a lot more clean.
Hopefully it works for Parker.
[narrator] To find out if the shaker deck can process clay,
Jeff is rigging a pre-wash system
using a high-pressure water jet.
[Parker] I'm actually really torn about
screen decks versus trommels,
because screens, to me,
are more simple and easier to work on.
And those are two of the biggest factors
that we need to consider.
[narrator] To clean the sticky clay,
the jet must hit the rocks with a force of 50 psi.
[Jeff] That's not gonna be enough pressure.
I was hoping for, like, a [bleep] jet,
not like a piss stream.
Nice try, Jeff.
[Jeff] Oh, what a pain.
Looks like they have some real water problems.
[Parker] I get what Jeff is trying to do.
But you just can't do that with a garden hose.
[Jeff] Brought in the reinforcements.
Once we ran the hose to the top
there just wasn't enough pressure, so Plan B.
[narrator] Jeff's called in Louis's water truck,
equipped with a high pressure pump.
[Jeff] There we go.
Yeah.
[narrator] Proof of the test's success
will be in the tailings.
[Parker] The biggest problem we've got right now
is we're up against it for time.
Like, if we don't find a plant in-country to buy,
that we can move to Fairbanks in time,
it's gonna be a disaster.
[Tyler] I guess once you have an eye for it,
- [Tyler] it becomes a lot easier. - [Te Rua] Yep.
[Te Rua] It's about having an eye in.
It takes people their whole life to sometimes get their eye,
some don't even get it.
[narrator] At the foot
of New Zealand's Southern Alps,
Te Rua, Tyler and Danny are hunting for valuable green stone.
[Te Rua] Even if you don't find anything,
it's just beautiful being out here and listening to the...
listening to the sounds of the water. Um...
[Tyler] You sound a lot like my dad.
He always says when you're out wandering
in the bush and just enjoying the nature and everything,
that's when you come across gold.
Exactly the same with the pounamu.
You've gotta be like water.
You gotta become it.
And so, the particular sort of stone that we're
looking for is, um, is either gonna be
a beautiful dock leaf green
or it's gonna be a chalky white.
- That's chalky. - [Te Rua] Yep, now you're getting your eye.
[Te Rua] You're getting closer. You're getting closer.
But that's not quite chalky enough.
No, that's not chalky enough.
That speckled look isn't it, is it?
[Te Rua] No, no. That's, that's not it.
[Tyler] This is kind of chalky.
It's a bit big, isn't it?
[Te Rua] Yep, you wanna know what color?
That's exactly what we're looking for right there.
No [bleep] way!
That's exactly what we're looking for right there.
- [Tyler] Oh, my [bleep] That's green. - [Te Rua] Yes.
[Tyler] Oh, my [bleep].
[Te Rua] So that's, that's the white, that's the, um,
the smoothness and that chalkiness
right there that we're talking about.
- [Tyler exclaims] - [Danny] That's white.
- [Te Rua] We're in the money. - [Tyler] It's huge!
When whenever we find a smaller one,
we always look around and ask ourselves,
"Where's your big brother or something?"
Oh, yeah.
- [Te Rua] But, um... - [Tyler] Surely this is as big as they get.
[Te Rua] It looks like we found the big brother.
- [laughs] - [Te Rua] Um...
[Tyler] So how much is it worth?
In this instance, uh, we're looking
at a couple hundred pound, easy.
That could range anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 raw.
- Far out. - [Te Rua] Yeah.
[narrator] Worth up to $10,000 US dollars,
the pounamu is carved into unique pieces of jewelry
by Te Rua's tribe,
potentially tripling its value.
I think the best way to acknowledge this,
it's just, uh, it's just to give thanks
to this place here.
[speaks in Maori]
I'd like to give you a hongi, Tyler.
So when we have a hongi...
So it's just, uh, a light touching of the nose
and of our foreheads.
And just a slight inhaling, just through the nose,
the breath of life.
- [Tyler] Okay. Perfect. - [speaks in Maori]
[Te Rua speaks Maori]
[Parker] Yeah.
[narrator] Before Parker can decide if Louis'
shaker deck is the one,
he needs to see if Jeff's bush fix
successfully washed away the clay.
[Jeff] As you can see they're definitely a lot cleaner.
- The task did work. - [Parker] Sweet.
And obviously in a perfect world, we'd do a few modifications
to make that a lot better,
but it, uh, gets the concept across.
I mean, It does make me start to lean towards a screen a bit more
because you can get the throughput
in a smaller footprint, you know.
- Yep. - Trommels are [bleep] huge
to get a 180 or more yards an hour
- out of. - They are.
If you can combine the wash
that you get out of trommel with a screen deck
by just hammering water to it,
you're getting all that [bleep] broken up.
You get the throughput of a screen deck
with the wash of a trommel...
Sounds like a win-win.
Yeah, the problem is we're not gonna
- find that plant for sale. - No.
So we might still be better off getting something that works
that's in time, rather than what's perfect.
- Right? - [Jeff] Hmm-mmm.
If Parker bought this shaker deck here,
he would have to do quite a bit of modifications
to make it work for his ground.
So I'm not sure whether or not he's decided himself
whether he wants a trommel or a shaker deck.
I came on this trip thinking that while it's a good thing that there's lots of trommels
in New Zealand 'cause I want a trommel
and now I'm like maybe we want a screen deck.
If I was forced to make a decision today,
I'd be like...
screen deck.
But yesterday, I was trying to buy a trommel.
We've got still a few other sites and plants to look at,
but I've got your number.
Thanks for everything.
- Really appreciate it. - [Jeff] Thanks, Louis. That was awesome
Thanks for letting me do those tests.
We better go find, um, Old Danny and Tyler.
The worst decision that I could possibly make is no decision.
Can't [bleep] stand indecision.
[Danny laughs]
[mimics honking]
[Jeff] Did you bring beer?
[dramatic music playing]
It's getting dark.
[narrator] With the sun setting, the team head to a nearby farm.
- [Tyler] Hello! - How is it going?
[man] Where are you all going?
Uh, well, we were actually just looking for a place to camp.
Oh, yeah.
I could put you somewhere where you can go for a camp for the night.
- [man] Now, if you wanna follow me. - Thank you.
- Or he's taking us to a place to kill us all. - [Jeff laughing]
- [Jeff] I think it's a puzzle. - Parker, could you please not do this to me
'cause I have anxiety about being murdered
- Do you? - [Tyler] Yes.
- Well, this is how it happens, okay? - Oh, definitely.
[Jeff] You could get buried out here and you'd have no idea.
[Tyler] Guys, this is textbook Wolf Creek Murder.
The cows will leave you alone, but, other than that, try and keep warm and...
Yeah.
Where should we set up camp?
[Jeff] Tyler, I put a wrench in the back of the seat on your side.
Can you just see if you can grab that?
- [Tyler screams] - [laughs]
- [Tyler laughs] - [all laughing]
- [Jeff] That was, that was... - [Tyler laughing]
[Jeff] That was good.
[Tyler giggling]
[bleep] I weed myself.
[Danny] Ah!
[Jeff] You landed in cow [bleep] and then peed yourself.
Oh, wow.
[Tyler] Today it was really nice that Danny and I got to split away
from that wash plant talk and go and do something different.
Um, and I kind of feel like it refreshed the team
once we do get back together, but...
to be honest though, I was hoping
that we'd leave Louis Nel's for the final time
with a really clear direction.
Parker's gonna still humming and hawing
whether it's a trommel or it's a shaker.
And personally, it's starting to stress me out.
Um, 'cause I've never really seen Parker like this.
The Parker I know is fiercely... fierce with his decision making.
He's hard and fast. He knows what he wants.
We're gonna have to wait to see what he... wait to see what he does.
Hopefully it's not too late.
[Parker] Where we're off to, then, Tyler?
[Tyler] Um, so we're gonna see a wash plant for sale.
It's Groundhog Day.
[narrator] With only seven weeks until the start of the season,
Parker is still undecided on a wash plant
for his new Alaskan venture.
Now we're chewing through these viewings now.
And it's not really about quantity as much as it is quality.
Well, yeah, but I think it's fair to say there was
a fair bit of quality at Louis Nel's.
I am worried that it doesn't really get better than Louis Nel's.
So just a head's up, Parker, around here it's gonna be slim pickings.
Anything special about this one we're gonna see.
I think it's got hydraulic legs.
- Is it another trommel? - [Tyler] Another trommel.
We have seen a lot of trommels now.
There's just not a lot of shaker decks.
Have you thought anymore about that, Parker?
Yeah, I've thought about it.
[narrator] From Ruatapu, Tyler's final plant on the West Coast
is 18 miles northeast, near the historic goldmining town of Kumara.
- [Tyler] Hello! - [TC] Hello.
Nice to meet you.
- What's your name? - Thomas, but everyone calls me TC.
- How long have you worked here? - [TC] A year and a half.
- [Parker] What did you do before that? - Coal mining.
Big tractors.
Uh, the head of big tractor up there are 475.
- But you didn't get to use it. - No, unfortunately I wasn't that age yet at 50.
- Some old grumpy guy got to run the 475, right? - [TC] Yep.
[TC] But you're not old and grumpy, right? Are you?
- I don't run a tractor. - [TC] No.
[TC laughs]
Is there a lot of gold in this ground?
[TC] Ah, there is a bit, yeah.
We've, um, we come across a lot up against the road edge there.
It's a bit, it's a bit deeper than we like to do normally.
[Parker] Right.
- But, um... - [Danny] Tell me you've just told us more
about how much gold you're catching than all the other miners combined
- that we've filmed since being in New Zealand. - [Danny laughs]
- I didn't tell you how much. - [Danny laughs]
- [Danny] You've said a lot. - [Parker] You're making him really nervous.
[all laughing]
I spoke to your boss on the phone and he said this was for sale.
Sure is.
- How old is it? - It's same as for your dash. I'll say that much.
[TC] But so we catch this gold, so...
- [Parker] That's what matters, right? - [TC] Exactly.
- [Parker] Moves pretty easily. - Pretty mobile, yeah.
- [Parker] Yeah? - Hydraulic legs, right?
[TC] Yeah, they make it really easy to level.
Good stuff.
[narrator] Parker needs a wash plant that is mobile for his claim in Alaska.
This 20-ton trommel has a price tag of $190,000.
Built on skids for maximum movability.
It's USP is four hydraulic legs to level the plant easily and quickly.
But, like, if you're gonna see it running, we gotta move it.
- All right, well, can we give you a hand? - [TC] Yeah.
All right, sweet.
One thing that Parker wanted to see a lot of was mobility.
This is good because we get to see it moving and the fact
it's got the hydraulics on the bottom of it is a plus.
The only problem is it's got a heavy stacker on it, so when we turn it
we have to try stop it from, uh, falling over.
Oh, no.
- I'll give you the nice new one. - [Parker laughs]
- [Parker] Well, we'll see what happens. - [TC] Yeah.
[beep]
[Tyler] I've seen a couple plant moves.
But they always make me a little bit nervous, you know.
There's a lot that could go wrong.
It's a heavy thing to be moving around
and there's a lot of parts coming off of it and stuff.
And especially, when you need two diggers to move the one plant
is you know, double the space for error.
Here they come.
Brother and sister.
Which side do you want?
I'll go in the back and lift the back up.
I'll move over there. Then you jump on that front corner.
And pull her around.
- [Jeff] You got some, uh, shackles. - [TC] Yeah.
[narrator] To move the 19-foot tall, 20-ton plant uphill
to the new mining pad,
Parker's excavator will pull from the front,
while TC steers at the back.
So, yeah, the only thing really to watch out for is the stacker, obviously.
- Yeah, don't hit the stacker. - [TC] Don't hit the stacker.
Got it.
Um, I see it's already a little bit bent.
[chuckles]
- That wasn't me. - Yeah, alrighty then.
I break it. I buy it?
You break it. You buy it. That's for sure.
[tense music playing]
[TC on intercom] All right, Parker. Are you ready?
Yep!
So much pressure on those chains.
[Jeff] One thing with the chains is you can
never tell where it's gonna break.
They just break.
Make them [bleep] fire off to the side.
Oh, you don't wanna be in the bait.
- Just right there. - [TC] And that looks good.
[Jeff] Went super good.
Nice, easy pullout. Nice, easy pull back. A little bit of a twist.
- All right, what's next? - We gotta level up.
[TC] The fun part.
[Parker] Some meaty jacks!
[TC] Some meaty jacks. Yeah. They're off for digging.
I was just gonna say they're off an excavator, aren't they?
[TC] Yeah, it's stooping down in the back.
And then, we're...
We're high on that side.
[narrator] Wash plants must run as level as possible.
Running off-center unevenly packs the sluice box
preventing the gold from being caught in the riffles
and lost off the end of the sluice.
It takes Parker a day to level his Yukon plants.
The hydraulic legs can achieve the same results in minutes.
- [Jeff] That's level there. - [Tyler] That was relatively easy.
Jeff, that's sweet.
- [Jeff] That's pretty sweet. - Yeah.
Way overbuilt. Super simple.
[TC] Okay, let's get this water going.
[Parker] This pipeline is getting hooked up to that hose?
[TC] Yeah.
So now we just need to get it running.
Get Jeff's eyes on it.
And who knows. Parker might wanna buy it.
[Parker] These little plants like this are super easy to move.
I mean, this actually really does fit the bill in terms of portability.
Cheap as peanuts to run too.
[grunts]
Yeah, I like how slick those leveling jacks are.
Like they're actually x-ramps off an excavator.
Um, excavator is just like super heavy duty,
like you could pick up a plant twice the size with those jacks.
All right, what now?
Sweet!
[machine starts]
[TC] Here comes the water.
[Jeff] At the moment, I think he might still be considering buying this plant,
but, uh, we never know what Parker is thinking.
And until we get his word, everything is gonna be at a standstill
for the start of next season.
So I want him to hurry the [bleep] up so we can get this going.
You got a few minutes?
- What's up? - [Jeff] Come take a look.
Yeah, hey.
- TC, will you run this? - [TC] Yeah, I'll run that. Yeah.
[Parker] Trade you out.
- What's up? - Well, I just had a good look around.
Everything looks pretty good.
It's got the leveling jacks.
Got a conveyor.
Got a self-cleaning system up top.
What do you, uh... What do you think?
- Too [bleep] small. - Uh...
It's a little bit small.
[Tyler] Here we are.
Kiwi Wild Lodge.
[narrator] Unique to New Zealand,
Kiwi birds are on the endangered list.
[Kristy Owens] I'm gonna shine a light in here and tell me if you can see it.
[narrator] Flightless and nocturnal,
Kiwis have an unexpected feature to help navigate the dark.
- It's got like whiskers. - [Kristy laughs]
If you'd like to, you can touch this kiwi.
Have a little feel, feel this, just gently.
[Tyler] Yeah. [bleep]
[narrator] Despite being born ready to run,
only 2% of these defenseless birds make it to adulthood.
[Kristy whispers] Slide kiwi back in there.
[Jeff] It's a little bit small.
Is that something you can work around?
- No. - No?
[narrator] Midway through the run,
Parker shuts down the test of TC's trommel.
Like it's perfect. It's just too [bleep] small.
[narrator] Gunning for a big pay day in Alaska,
Parker needs a plant that can chew through the ground.
Well, my biggest thing is, you know, we're getting pretty late into this trip.
We've seen some pretty good stuff,
but, uh, we haven't jump on anything yet.
It's, uh... It's got me kind of worried for timing right now.
New season is coming pretty fast.
[Tyler] I feel like I'm starting to get at the end of my contact list.
It's getting hard.
Like I'm scrapping the bottom of the barrel here.
[Danny] Listen, the thing is, man.
The reality here is you still haven't actually chosen
what type of plant you want.
You should probably be at that stage by now.
If I knew which one I want, we wouldn't be in this [bleep] country.
That's why we're on this trip.
[Danny] Well, I know it is, but...
we're quite a long way into it.
Surely, like, if you, if you could make that decision,
then we can move on to the next step.
And that gets the ball rolling, right?
I'm leaving.
Don't tell me what the [bleep] to do, Danny.
[bleep]
[Jeff] That didn't go great.
No, it didn't.
I feel like I'm losing this battle here.
This plant is decent. It would do the job for him.
So, yeah.
It's kind of a bit of a blow that he's not interested in this one.
So that's that. It's got me a bit worried.
We need a plant for our season coming.
We've been out here for, you know, quite a while now.
We've seen quite a few wash plants.
He's not buying them.
They're not meeting his requirements or his standards.
So we need to carry on looking.
But we also need to nail down what he wants.
Otherwise...
I don't think Alaska is going to be a thing.
[Danny] We've seen a lot of wash plants now.
Don't you think sometimes you might have bitten off a little bit
more than you can chew.
Sometimes.
Um, I wouldn't say that I've bitten off more than we can chew.
I'm more scared of just like to pull the trigger on anything.
I haven't pulled at any triggers
on any big ticket item for Fairbanks, yet
because I'm like [bleep],
do I really want to spend that $5 million?
[man] [bleep]
It will spend before we pull an ounce of gold out of the ground.
Like you could retire with that.
[Tyler] It's a lot of money. Mmm.
It's just like do you really want to dump it all back into the next project?
- You know. - Hmm-mmm.
Do you think you're making decisions like that
because it's kind of in your blood?
It's definitely... It's a part of this family thing.
My grandpa and my dad never paid themselves anything out of the companies.
And just like pumped it all back into the business.
My grandpa didn't work the last time he did it, right?
Like his sawmill went bankrupt.
But, yeah, I don't know.
I really, in the next, like, while I'm on this trip, I have to start making the decision
and start spending lots of money.
Like Jeff's pushing me.
- I don't wanna push you hard 'cause I know you know. - [Parker] I know.
- [Jeff] And I know. - I know. I know that you know that I know.
Yeah.
That's like skydiving.
I need somebody to boot [bleep] me out the door
and then we're flying.
[Tyler] I'll do it.
[Jeff laughs] Perfect.
- [all laughing] - [Parker] I'm going to bed.
- [Danny] Cheers, mate. - [Parker] Cheers.
Dan got me thinking tonight about the whole Fairbanks project.
And just like, you know, the financial side of it.
It's definitely, um...
a bit daunting.
Like I'm used to spending a lot of money,
but there's also, you know, a lot of money coming in.
Um, when you're setting up a new project, it's like...
that money is just to step foot on the ground.
Mentally, it's, uh...
...a challenge.
Like I have to start making the big decisions in spending the big money.
Yeah, time's ticking away.