Original subtitles

Rusty, I'm getting a little bit stewed up here. These people have been fronted. I hope

they're reliable.

These people never let me down, so you'll be fine. I'm sure they'll be there soon.

I haven't seen anybody and I, well, I don't know what's going on.

Hey, just double check where you are because, I mean, they've never let me down before,

so, and these people know their gold.

This family specializes in the hard rock mining in that area. They have all the gear you need

to crush and sample, so if there's gold in Messenger's patch, these guys will find it.

Okay, well, that's what I want to hear. I think I can see something humming along there

now.

I better hang up there, Rusty. I'll catch you later, mate.

Good luck.

Are you kidding me?

Jeez, you look a bit bigger on TV.

I am the real deal. And who are you?

I'm Ryan.

Is anybody else with you?

My mum and dad. This is them coming in now.

Good morning.

Neil, is it?

Yes.

Good day, I'm Christine.

Christine. So I'm Rusty's mate, Shane. I see you've got all the gear. I hope the gear's

as good as what he says it is.

Well, we can only give it a shot, mate.

Okay, well, follow me down to where we are and we can get stuck into it. What do you

reckon?

Let's do it.

It's good to finally meet Shane. Russell's told us a lot about him. Hopefully we can

help him out. The ground looks good.

Yeah, it does. It's a lot of quartz about it, like a bit of salt and pepper.

Well, Rusty's people have turned up. They've got some small crushing equipment. It should

be able to give us a good indication of what material I've got here at Messy's patch.

So what we'll do, we'll head down there and we'll see if we can start processing to gold.

Rusty.

You're getting better looking, I can tell you.

After travelling over 1400 kilometres into the bush...

It's coming!

Hey, Rusty, she's running like a dream.

Shane and Rusty found gold at Fantasy Gully.

$18,000 in one week, that's not bad.

It's worth celebrating, Rusty.

Shane! Turn it off! There's a problem with the water.

But their good fortune was short-lived.

We need to get that water sorted out, boys.

I've decided to come down south. If Russell can't rectify the water, this is our future.

We need to keep our season alive.

With the help of geologist Ryan Kahoon, Shane found a hard rock deposit rich with gold.

That's a thousand grams per tonne on that spot, on that piece of rock there.

Now, Shane is hoping that Davis' one-of-a-kind mobile crushing plant can turn his high-grade

rock into a massive gold payday.

Well this is probably better than what I thought we'd get through with this sort of gear.

Yeah, well when he called us instead, we thought we'd bring it all out.

Now what about you guys? Tell me about you.

Well, I was data detecting in 2002, quite a pretty major gold bug while I was doing my apprenticeship.

So is this bordering on gold fever?

100%.

And what about you? You tell me what's going on.

Oh, mate, I rocked up to the Merchison and the magic of the bush fell in love.

Well, we can see that from the process you got there.

A young rhino here, he's been detecting around gold his whole life.

Three weeks old when the first pair of headphones went over his ears.

Then at about three years old was pinpointing for Dad.

Just don't drop it, will you?

Russell organised yous here. He knows I've got some good gold here.

And this is exactly what I need and I hope things go well.

I think that's going to be all right.

Righto, Shane. Everything's pretty well built.

Next step is we need some rocks to put through it and then a deal.

I think a simple way of doing it is just half, straight down the middle.

There's no arguments then.

Okay, done.

Sounds good.

All right, Neil, we're going to deal.

Okay, well I'm going to go and get some rocks.

Let's feed the beast.

I was a bit sceptical about Russell, but he came through.

These people are great, the machinery's great,

and this will be a season saver.

And I'll go down and get me back home

and start tearing some of this quartz out.

Well, rhino, I've dug a costine over here.

I've exposed a reef down there.

It's a big piece of quartz.

It looks very positive. I like it.

I just can't wait to crush it up.

Over millions of years,

seismic activity pushed molten gold and quartz upwards.

As they cooled in the earth's crust,

they formed gold-rich hard rock structures called gold reefs.

Righty-o, Ryan, let's get on the gold.

Keiko, let's get the first group in.

Neil's done a great job with his band.

They're all set up. Now it's up to me.

The faster I go, the bigger the return.

My whole season's hanging on this.

This machine's tired. It's a bit like the driver.

Come on, keep going.

Look at these quartz here. This is promising.

Tell you what, Ryan, it's a big reef here. Look at that.

Good.

Did you take the gold in it?

Okay, Ryan, I'm dappin' off.

See, you're doing a man-size work here today, Ryan, won't you?

Okay, let's pick the quartz out of here.

Well done, Ryan, and you whipped that over your old man.

I can't hear that machine running. It ain't running and no gold.

All right, here he is. Good boy.

Finally got some rocks to crush.

Awesome. Let's have a look what we'll deal with.

Some nice quartz.

Hopefully there's a bit of gold coming through.

Thanks, my love.

You reckon you can get me some more?

Yep.

Thanks, buddy.

All right, let's get these in-rocking...

The Davises Mobile Plant uses an impact crusher that spins at 3000 revolutions per minute.

It can turn 500 kilograms of gold-bearing hard rock an hour into fine powder.

Yeah, so that's one bucket.

Once they've crushed the reef,

they'll use a wet plant to separate the gold from the pulverised rock.

Okay, Ryan, get the next one going, Ryan.

Let's get into it. We're on our way now.

Oh, look at that there.

Big quartz structure here.

Too big to crush it up.

I ought to get that big one out.

Neil!

I've exposed a big quartz reef over there.

It's a very, very large piece of quartz.

Obviously the backhoe is not touching it.

Not touching it.

Now why don't you come over and have a look?

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

What have we got here?

Well, we've got a big quartz outburst here.

It's still attached to the reef,

but I'd really like to get some good samples out of this.

What do you reckon we can do?

Obviously no backhoe.

Jackhammer no good.

Nope.

I know there is gold down there, Neil,

but if we can't move that boulder, we're well and truly screwed.

Well, Teague, welcome to the Desert King.

Thank you.

Dad's going to be so excited to see you.

I know. I'm excited.

It's been a while.

It's so good that you got time off work.

Finally.

Last week we were up here.

We found around 10 ounces.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

That's pretty good.

Hopefully we find them today.

So the girls here.

I reckon you stay in the car.

All right.

And we'll totally surprise you.

Hey, Dad.

Hey, Ab.

Hi, babe.

Hey, hon.

We made it.

Jeez, what's with this weather?

How are you?

I'm good.

So good to see you.

We brought you a surprise.

Who's that?

Teague!

Hi!

How are you?

I'm good.

We brought the good luck charm.

Yep. Fingers crossed.

You just heard how much gold they found last night, right?

I did, yeah.

Well, hopefully you can find some too.

So what's the plan?

I'm going to move the machine over there into that other valley

and start pushing over there and get you girls on the detectors.

Yeah, awesome.

Sounds good.

I did see some quartz sticking up through there.

So is the quartz the key we're looking for?

Most of the gold in this country comes up with the quartz,

so that's why I've got the crusher out here.

We'll take some samples, crush it up and see what we get.

Awesome.

Could be sitting on the motherlode.

Let's hope so.

Let's go, team.

Let's do it.

It's great having the girls come out and give us a hand.

Haven't seen Teague out in the bush for quite a few years,

so having them all here together at once is exactly what I wanted.

Spend time with the family in the bush and find gold together.

We're already halfway through the season

and haven't even got halfway with the gold value yet,

so there's a lot of work still to be done.

It's so nice that I've got both girls up here this week.

Paul's been up here for a long time,

but most of that time he was on his own.

You know, I was back raising the children,

but the kids are older now,

so it's actually really nice that we can all come together.

Hopefully we can make this work for us as a family,

and we don't have to have other careers.

This can just be our main focus, and we can all come together.

With Sal and the Phoenix Projects giving us a good little coffer that we can work with,

that's allowed me to hire this big machine.

Hopefully it's not a waste of money.

We can actually pull some decent gold out of the ground.

But at the end of the day, we're here at the Desert King now,

and this is our livelihood, so we've got to make it work.

I don't normally hedge all bets on one operation.

I've normally got a few things on the go,

but at the moment this is all we've got.

There's a big mining company in the area,

and they've made me an offer.

No mortgage, debt-free, money in the bank.

Let's do it.

Sell the Phoenix Project.

After selling the Phoenix Project,

the Mackies moved their operation 600 kilometres south to the Desert King lease.

That's a thumper.

Finding over $35,000 worth of gold in their first week.

Nice.

Now they're back with a 65-ton dozer to hunt for the source of the gold.

Trying to push up a bit where the girls are finding their big nuggets last week,

and hopefully uncover some more big chunky yellow gold nuggets.

The lease is pretty big,

so I told the girls what they're looking around detecting,

keeping an eye out for any quartz outcrops or ironstone outcrops.

Just something that I know is an indicator of where gold comes from.

Really want to find a nice, decent quartz vein.

You know, a bit of ironstone in it.

Just something to help point me in the right direction here.

At the moment, we're not really seeing anything.

I'm glad you're up here.

I'm glad I am as well, getting to spend time with family.

How are you going with the detector?

Getting the hang of it slowly.

You're a good teacher.

It's been a while.

I've been told before.

I hope we find a signal soon, though.

Yeah, me too.

Oh, yes, that sounds promising.

Give that a go.

Maybe dig a little bit deeper.

Sounds good. Maybe give Mum a ring.

Yeah, good idea.

Copy, Shan.

Yeah, got your take.

Do you reckon you could head down?

Sounds a little bit promising, but we're not sure.

Well, that sounds good.

I'm on my way.

Beautiful. Thank you.

Hey, girls.

Hi.

What you got?

Hopefully a big nugget.

You might need to break through that layer.

Come on, Ebs, get into it.

Oi.

Cheeky.

I think it's right about here, Tix.

All right, let's have a look, hey?

It sounds pretty promising.

Oh, it's in your hand.

Oh my god, I cannot believe this.

I've just been out to the fuel one, and we can fill up the generator and the loader.

That's one of our biggest bills is fuel.

Probably on average, between everything, generators and the loader and cab,

we probably spend about $350 a day on fuel.

And it's something you have to do, you have to buy, otherwise you can't dig for gold.

The frustrating bit is when you're not getting gold, you're still spending the same fuel.

The weather's been really wet, wetter than normal for winter,

which has been really disappointing for us because the dry blower does need dry dirt.

It doesn't work if it's wet.

Gold's going to stick to it, and you're going to lose gold, and it can sort of block up your traits.

There comes Cheryl back with fuel.

That's good, just in time.

Whacking up the load in why she's setting up.

It's great having Cheryl up here.

She's on the ball.

She's learning all these little things.

She's doing great.

She's chucked in a high-paying, qualifying job that she's been doing as a midwife for 25 years.

They come out here and help me follow the dream.

It doesn't work.

It's all for nothing.

We're not playing, we're not just little hobby gold miners.

This is our livelihood.

If it doesn't work, we're screwed.

We're about halfway through our season target at the moment, which is pretty good.

For the run we've had with weather, like we haven't been able to run the ground we want to run,

we've had to make do with where we've got some dry piles.

They aren't always the best, but something's better than nothing.

And then now we can get back onto some dry ground and hopefully have a higher yield

because we can push up where we want to.

We made it.

After setting an ambitious 50-ounce season target.

Choking too much dust.

First-time miners Cheryl Munro and Simon Laws

overcame mechanical failures

and breakdowns

to stay on the goal.

Well done, Laws.

We did well.

Woohoo!

I know that's me fueled up for today.

So I'll keep running this dirt.

This is a really good spotty.

Remember that dirt we pushed up before the rains came?

Yeah.

In the valley there.

Maybe I could go there and detect and see how that is.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

All right. See you later.

Let the dust begin.

We've really got a great advantage with the dry blow we've got.

Like I can do about 30 tonne an hour with a dry blower and it catches ultra fine gold,

which you can't always get with the dry blow, but we've fine tuned it very well.

There's a lot more of that fine dust gold around than what there is nuggets

and that's the same everywhere.

But a lot of people just forget about that.

They want the glory of the nuggets where the money is actually in the fine dust and more of that around.

Hopefully where Cheryl's going out to have a bit of a detect,

she's going to find a bit of gold.

Simon pushed this area up just before the rains came in

and he thought it looked quite promising.

It's always important to be a step ahead.

You always have to think of, all right, we're on good gold now.

What we're going to do next?

What's going to happen after that?

Have a plan B and always have a plan C back up as well.

Because we just can't afford to have downtime.

Downtime costs us lots of money.

It's a good noise.

A bit of hard rock here so it's hard to get to.

Yeah, it's quite deep.

Look at that.

That's a good one.

It's still got like bits of quartz stuck on it.

That's probably about a quarter of an ounce.

About $1,100.

Good find.

Happy with that.

That's fantastic.

We don't often find big bits like that here.

That's my biggest find of a nugget for a long time.

It'd be nice if we got a few more of them and some finds.

Happy days.

Oh, what the ****?

Something shut down.

There's the culprit.

Big rock.

Well, I'm truly wedged in there too.

I think.

So what's happened is it's fallen off the front of the screen

then just lands down there and up there and gets stuck.

It's happened before.

Won't be the last time probably either.

Oh, yeah, that's cooked.

I can smell it from here.

It's gotten too hot because the rock's got jammed in there.

Belt's not working but this is still grinding and **** off

and it hasn't tripped the switch quick enough.

So that's a new motor.

I don't think I've got one at camp either.

You got a copy, Cheryl?

Yeah, copy.

Good.

We'll leave it but I've burnt the motor out on the conveyor.

**** Simon, what we're going to do now?

I'd really like to get some good samples out of this.

What do you reckon we can do?

Obviously no backhoe.

No backhoe won't even touch it.

I'll be wasting jackhammer on that one.

Yeah.

But I do have a bit of a technique we might be able to use.

Got these steel wedges, the ancient technique.

We'll see if we can split the ****.

Well, Neil, I'm relying on your expertise.

So what I think we should do is just get on with it.

That's it.

We don't have dynamite so this is the next best thing.

The ancient wedge and feather technique

uses metal tools to split rock.

Wedges are hammered into shims known as feathers,

creating enough pressure to split the quads.

You want to go with the grain of the rock?

Yeah.

As you drive that in, it should open up.

With a number of them in a line, it just takes the work out of it.

All three work together so the deeper you get those,

further down your crack will be.

Yep.

So you're always moving back and forth.

Cool.

Come on, buddy, keep going.

Neil, look at that.

Keep it going, Neil.

Fight on.

Fight on, Neil.

You want me to get my bar and bar there for you?

Let's do it.

Come on, Neil.

Neil, that's it.

That's unbelievable, Neil.

This is what I'm after.

This is absolutely perfect.

Well done, mate.

Looks good.

Absolutely.

I think we've got enough here for a good sample size pieces for the crusher.

Same process.

You and Ryan, bringing it to me and Christine.

Let's do it.

You're meant to help me a bit there, Ryan, aren't you?

Okay, run that over to you, Dad.

That's better.

Go.

This is just the bit of concentrate we've got that will run further,

but this is just our indicator.

We'll have a bit of a look what's out the bottom.

That's fine.

Can I have a little drill over it?

I'm very positive about that for the size of that machine

and the work it does is just unbelievable.

And it takes all the work out of it, but literally not double handling any.

Okay, well, let's just get on with it.

No point in talking.

That's it. We're on the gold chain.

Let's get back to crushing.

How did you manage that?

Rock come over the front of the screen.

Yeah.

Then got caught underneath that little tensioner wheel

and it's burnt out before it's tripped the switch.

Nothing can do.

With the amount of mining that goes up on here,

someone will have something,

but it's whether we're going to get the right shaft size

and the right speed motor.

Well, there's that off.

Pain.

Pain in the bum, but anyway,

I'll get him to do some ringing around

and see if I can find one up here before I rush off to Perth.

Fingers crossed you do get one up here

because you don't want to be traveling back to Perth

and take two days out.

I'll have a bit of a ring around and see what I can find.

Oh, good luck getting one.

I'll give you a call later.

Adio.

I've got hold of old Trev.

He's a bloke in town that's got a big scrap yard.

He's away at the moment working,

but he'll be back there later on.

He's basically said I can go in and have a look around

and see what he's got there.

So I'm heading in to go and have a look

and hopefully I can find something.

This motor that's blown,

like it's a crucial part of the operation,

really with the dry blower,

you take one aspect out, any moving part,

it stops the whole operation.

So it's not as though you can just think,

oh, we can work around that.

So hopefully I can find something

that's going to fit the bill

because downtime's money.

All right, here we go.

Out here in Trev's scrap yard,

or his bone yard they call it,

with all the old machinery

that's either discontinued or broken

or maybe still working, just surplus stuff.

Plenty of motors around out here.

Just got to find the right shaft size

and the right configuration to fit.

I think it's a little all right looking one.

No weight on that one.

Ooh, here's a good looking one.

Yeah, right size.

Shaft moves so it's not seized,

but perfect size, perfect speed.

Looks very promising.

Hopefully it works.

Here comes Trev now.

Good timing.

Hopefully he knows whether it works or not

and do us a deal.

G'day, Simon.

Trev.

How are you?

Good.

I just found this one in the pile amongst the others.

Do you know if it works?

I don't know if it works.

You'll have to try it.

It's not seized, so what do you want for it, do you know?

See if it works.

And then we'll talk about it afterwards.

All right then.

We'll do a deal.

Perfect.

Thank you, sir.

Well done.

All right.

Get going.

Good old Trev's come through.

Let's hope it works.

If it doesn't, that's a two-day drive to Perth

to go down and get another one.

Did not see that every day.

I can't believe that.

How much is Draca Nuts worth?

Five grand.

Look at that.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's some good luck right there.

High five.

High five.

Yes, T.

Well done, Ebbs.

Well, I hope this is the source of where the gold's come from.

Don't have that much big chunky nuggets come out of an area.

Not bad, how would a source have one major source for it?

The good thing is, I've got the girls out there.

They're all doing their part and having a good look.

Hopefully, they can pull some gold out of the ground as well with some nuggets.

Oh, that adds up at the end of the day to the gold, Sally.

The gold game's fun and all, but at the end of the day,

you're running your own business.

The amount of money that it costs to keep on going,

the cost of this machine, I literally need to be fighting gold on a daily basis.

If I'm not, then we'll just go backwards.

Hey, do you reckon this is the quartz Dad was talking about?

It could be.

Yeah, I reckon it might be.

Oh, Ebbs, look at that.

That looks like quartz to me.

Yeah, definitely.

And I noticed when we were walking past,

I reckon that's the iron contact that Dad was talking about.

Yeah, we could be onto something here.

Look at that, we're surrounded by it.

How can I give Dad a call?

Can I get a copy, Dad?

Yeah, copy, T.

I think we may be onto something here.

We found some quartz and I think we just walked past some iron contact.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Hey, girls, what do you got?

See, this looks all right.

Do you reckon we could be onto something here?

Yeah, well, you've got, looks like a quartz outcrop just behind you there

and there's a lot of iron on the ground too.

It actually looks pretty good, to be honest.

Yeah.

And you're on top of the hill too, so that makes sense.

All the gold's washed all the way downhill where we were finding it,

so it's exactly what we're looking for.

Do you reckon we should crush it?

Yeah, I think we should.

I think we should.

I think we should.

I think we should.

I think we should.

I think we should.

Do you reckon we should crush it?

Definitely. It's the only way to tell.

Let's grab some small samples, take it down to the crusher.

You guys can pan it off.

Yep.

Let me know if there's gold in it and I'll bring the dozer over and we'll rip and do it.

Let's go.

All right, I've got a bag here.

Let's start collecting samples.

There is super exciting.

There's a lot of quartz, there's a lot of iron.

It's the right recipe for gold.

Let's rip this sucker up, see what's in it.

It's coming out big slugs here too.

Making the equipment work really hard.

We're pretty warm outside.

I can see the temperature gauge is climbing a bit now.

I need to keep going.

I need to get down a little bit deeper.

Let's actually see what we can uncover here.

Come on, old girl, you can do it.

The smell of fluid.

The smell of fluid.

Smells like coolant.

I have to get down and have a look at that.

That ain't good.

I can smell coolant everywhere.

Uh-oh.

Yeah, mongrel.

I can see radiator fluid everywhere on the ground down there.

I hope that's not a water pump.

We finished crushing the reef.

Now we are heading back to Neil and Christine's property.

We've got the concentrations here and what we'll do,

we'll run it through some little milling stuff and gold wheels and all those sorts of things

and I hope we get some good gold out of it.

If we get very good gold out of it, that's good for the future

and we'll be able to come back here with some large machinery

and probably some even bigger crushing material.

So what have we got here, Ryan?

Gold.

It feels good, Shane.

It'll feel good when it's running through there.

I'm really excited.

We've gone from half a tonne of quartz rock crushed down into a nice tub of concentrate here.

From there, I reckon we'll get a nice little pan of gold that we can

smelt down.

It's going to take me four or five hours to get through all this concentrate though.

All right, Shane, seeing as you're such a gun operator on the detector,

there's a bit of ground that I've been meaning to get to

and I think Yumi and Ryan, three of us together, would get some good work done.

So, you want to come out for a beep?

Gee, you're pouring the pressure on me but I'm only too pleased to look for gold.

All right, have a good beep.

We're going beeping.

I like that.

It's all in Christine's hands.

We won't know the future of messages, Pat, till all these concentrates are processed.

So, once we've got our gold wheel going around, water looks good.

It's flowing down nicely.

Let's load them up, see what we've got.

It's going to pop the concentrate through the gold wheel as it turns.

The water's going to come out of the spout here.

It's going to continue to turn.

All of the gold, the heavies, is going to come into the pan.

Any fines through onto the mat in the sluice.

Seeing some visible gold come through.

It'll be interesting to find out what's in the mat.

We'll be able to pull the mats, clean them out, pick up those ultrafines from there.

So, really, really excited about what the concentrate has shown me already.

All right, Shane, this is it.

This is the spot I wanted to show you.

I've done a bit of work in here,

but I need your expertise to show me where I should be looking.

I think we'll head up that way.

Yeah.

Still got a bit of tree, a bit of stuff there.

We're going to find anything.

Let's go find where it's virgin.

Yep, let's do that.

Pretty handy having Shane around.

Like, he's been in the game a long time.

Just a different set of ideas.

Like, sometimes you just get stale,

so you need some feedback off other prospectors,

especially some with the experience Shane has.

Like, I've had some good mentors over the years,

but then they're longer here,

so I might start to tend to Shane a bit more.

There might be a bit of gold.

Dad!

Hey, Rano, are you calling me?

I think I've got a nugget!

There's nothing.

Step right back, put your coil right back off

and come towards it.

Right, so that tells me it's in right in that front pile there.

Dad!

Yes!

Shane was right.

What's this racket going on here, Rano?

Shane, have a look at this.

That's what I just found.

For real?

Yep.

That's unbelievable!

You found this today on your own back?

Yep.

That's unbelievable, mate.

Ryan, I'm going to go because I've got to find a bit of gold

because you're making me look real bad here.

Let's go find some more.

God, there's sounds everywhere, here.

Well, I'll try this bit first.

I'm going to make it a little bit wider

because you can detect the head in there.

Nice sound.

The deeper you go down, the better chance you are.

Oh!

It's happening.

Not there.

There's a sound here.

It's a big sound!

It's in me hand.

It's a big sound!

It's in me hand.

Look at that!

It's a nice piece of gold.

I would say it's about a gram and a half.

Money terms, about 150 bucks.

Certainly worth my time coming out here.

How are we getting on there, boys?

Good, mate.

How'd you go?

Good.

Definitely got some good nuggets.

Yep, we've had a good day.

The star man looks like it's going to be Ryan,

but we don't know until we weigh it all up, do we, boys?

Oh, the truth's on the scale, Shane.

Let's go weigh it up!

I seriously hope this is not the water pump

or blown radiator hose.

There's bloody coolant everywhere.

Ah!

Radiator hose.

The clamps come loose.

It's dripping.

All right.

It's not weeping now.

Glad it's not the water pump, because that would have been

a bloody costly exercise.

Hopefully, that's all it was.

Abby, there's a bit of shine in there along the ridges.

You reckon that's gold?

I think so.

I don't know.

Look at us go, Abby.

It's shining.

Maybe give Dad a call.

Yeah, OK.

Over.

Copy, Dad.

Go ahead, Gidget.

We're just panning the dirt now.

Do you want to come down and have a look?

Yeah, I'll be right there.

It looks like you nearly finished the first one.

Yeah, I'm almost done.

I'm almost done.

I'm almost done.

I'm almost done.

I'm almost done.

I'm almost done.

Looks like you nearly finished the first pan.

Would you like to take over?

Yeah.

All righty.

Oh, we got here.

So are we dreaming, or is there anything there?

Do you want the good news?

Yeah.

There's a lot of gold in there.

Really?

Where?

Oh, look at that.

Oh, my god.

I'm so stoked with that.

I can't believe you guys just pulled that off the top of the ground.

I was not expecting it.

Neither was I.

We may have actually found where it's all coming from.

Yeah, but you've got to rip that up.

Yeah, Dad.

Go on.

Go rip it up.

Get to it.

Oh, don't have to tell me twice.

Get to it.

I'm getting straight into that machine.

That pan was phenomenal.

You know, if I can rip into that with a dozer and open it up

and find some big chunky rocks that contain gold,

we might have found the source of our 200 ounces for the season.

I hope we're on the jackpot here.

It's opening up the ground just beneath where that's, uh,

the girls found that quartz reef.

If I can get that cap rock off, well,

it might have some luck with some hidden gems underneath it.

The rocks I'm digging up here look good.

The girls might have got onto it by now, surely.

I'm going to try and get a little bit of a look at it.

I'm going to try and get a little bit of a look at it.

I'm going to try and get a little bit of a look at it.

I'm going to try and get a little bit of a look at it.

Yeah, surely.

Hopefully I'm not just scurrying over top of the harbor.

I'm actually stumbled across a good gold lead here.

That's, um, that's going to be us for the season.

I'll just be mining this for the rest of it, I reckon.

All right, let's give it a pass.

We'll try and stay away from the ripper marks where I ripped.

And we'll just go in the center.

All right, no worries.

I reckon this is a fair bit of washed gravels here

in between that iron ridge and between that course.

Yep.

There might be something in here.

I think it's crossed, hey?

Yeah, the blade went down pretty quick here, so.

That sounds like a good signal.

It is a good signal.

Well, you're basically down to the rock there anyway.

Oh.

What have you got there?

It's a bit of banded iron.

Yeah, OK.

There's gold in it.

Seriously?

Look at that.

That's a good little specie take.

Yeah.

Look at that gold stuck in that quartz right

against the edge of the iron.

Yep.

That's what we're looking for.

Absolutely.

It's like those other banded iron over there

again amongst the quartz with the stringers.

There's gold here.

Good find.

Beautiful.

Beauty.

Beauty.

Trev come through with the goods.

Oh, that's good.

Good old Trev.

Yeah, right size and right shaft, and it spins, but.

It works.

It's been there a while.

He doesn't know if it works or not.

Fingers crossed.

All right, we'll get it on there, and you can just help

me lift this other one off, and we'll test it out.

So you've got me to fold it here?

And I can just have this.

Nice.

I think it works.

You don't want to do a two day trip to Perth.

Yeah, either Trevor a million dollars or nothing.

Moment of truth.

Fingers crossed.

Yes.

Good old Trev.

Good old Trev.

I know.

I'll get back into it.

Stoked I'm getting that conveyor motor back on and running.

Trevor really come through with the goods there,

so I run them perfectly.

Dirt's nice and dry.

It's flying through, just trying to smash absolutely as many tons

as I can while I can while it's nice and dry.

And I reckon this dirt's going to run through really well.

There it is.

Coffee timing?

Yeah.

I just found another two wee nuggets quite close together.

Oh, that's great.

Hopefully get a good run over there.

Little dust pixie coming through with the goods.

So we've had a good week.

We've got lots of tons going through.

I'm hoping for a good weigh in.

The boys are back.

How'd you go?

Well, I'm already interested to see what you've got, Christine.

It's been on my mind all day.

Oh, come around, Shane.

Let's have a look.

Thanks for coming out.

Rusty came through.

You were terrific.

Country people helping country people, right?

Well, I just can't wait to see what you've actually got.

The proof will be in the pudding.

Try it on the scales and tell me what you've got.

Three, four, five, point seven, point eight.

One point one, Shane.

One point one.

That's a lot better than what I thought.

It's out before my expectations and I really like it.

And remember, there's still plenty of that there.

We only grabbed a quarter of it.

The best part is that I've got a future there now.

Don't forget, we've got these from today.

It's good you put us in the right direction.

Good on you.

Here we go.

All right, what did we come out with, boys?

One point two, eight.

Hey, Rhino, I don't know you got one up your sleeve.

Let's have a look at it, Rhino.

Oh, mate, your nugget brings the total to one point three, seven.

That means it's nearly five thousand dollars.

That's two and a half thousand dollars we share between us.

You're absolutely fantastic running that oar back with the forwards on that quad bike.

Great stuff.

Happy to help.

Well, I've got something for you here.

Oh, what does it say?

On the gold.

On the gold.

Put it on, Rhino.

You're a pretty unforgettable character, Shane.

Thanks so much, Shane.

Righto, I'll run this bucket, pan it off.

I reckon it's going to be good.

So this is just a little slew.

So we've started with it in the dry blow and we've gone from 30 tonne an hour down to,

you know, three little buckets we end up with.

And then this is going to classify it down even more.

The bigger gold will get caught up in the black mat up in the top of this hopper here.

And then more gold will be down the bottom in the green mat.

And that'll be all the real fine gold.

There we go.

That's two pans of the six and that's a bloody good result.

I'm stoked about that.

Catching all those fines around here on the water.

That's what you want.

That really, really fine gold.

That's where the money is.

There's so much more of that around than the nuggets.

And that's all there because someone hasn't been able to catch it in the past.

Looking at that, we're easily going to be hitting our ounce a day in that patch there.

Truth will be in the weigh-in.

I'm excited to see what we've got.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing the big weigh-in.

See how the week went.

We did have a good week really.

Apart from that little break down, which was six hours day time.

And if we didn't have that, then it would have made a difference as well.

Definitely.

Like going on that last cleanup as well.

Like that's really good ground right now.

So it's going to be good.

And then the weather's been in our favour and it's still nice not to have the rain to worry about,

isn't it?

Well, that's the first time I've been able to push up virgin ground in three months.

I know, that's mad.

Right, hey.

Let's see what this dry blow got.

4.9.

And then the nuggets.

Good work, Lola.

5.4.

That's a tough week of the season, Tagan, eh?

Yeah, and it'll be a good tail end, you know, because hopefully now that we're coming into dry weather,

so we can push better ground.

Well, let's get back into it.

While this dry weather's here, we might as well get cracking.

Yep, I'm keen to get back into it, especially after that last cleanup.

Yeah, I know.

Rippin' to it.

It's late, isn't it?

Yeah.

Let's go.

Shab-a-dab-a-do.

This is all teared up, ready to go.

Rain time.

Oh, you got the pan as well.

Very good looking pan.

Yeah, that is fascinating.

Don't forget this spicy.

Yeah, well.

Don't forget this.

Super excited about that.

That's more important right now.

So let's get on with that.

All right, have a look.

Ooh, a nice pile of gold there.

Let's start with the small ones first.

What are we at?

0.67.

Is that too bad?

Over half an ounce.

1.7.

Made it a bit better.

I'm excited.

Big one?

What's the big one?

Whoa.

Nice.

Takes us over four ounces.

That's excellent.

That's pretty good.

Probably close to around 14 grand, I'd say.

We wouldn't have got there without you, Tiek,

because you guys found that one.

It's the biggest nugget I've ever found, that's for sure.

Nuggets are well and good,

but I'm more interested in this pan.

Yeah, absolutely.

Literally.

This was only one pan.

Yeah.

Like, we didn't crush up that much rock,

so we'll get back out there, open it all up,

but if it's going to stay consistent like this,

then that 200 ounce target's not too far away.

It's looking promising.

Yeah, hell yeah.

So it might have been definitely the right decision

in selling the Phoenix project, I think.

Looks that way at the moment.

Well, celebrate.

Let's go celebrate.

I think so.

Grab the gold, Gidget.

Can't forget that.