Original subtitles

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Here we go. This is the river coming

Right.Park up on the crest, and I'll walk it first,

I think, mate.Yep.

Rightio. Bring your front tyre up here.

Nice and steady.

Woo!

Good work, mate.Thank you.

These mornings are getting hot quick now.

It's punishing. This fan feels like it's doing nothing, hey?

It's only supposed to be 41 today.

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me.

Hey, Andy, the car's starting to get a bit hot.

The temperature's going up heaps.

I think it's just creeping up these hills so slow.

We haven't got far to go. You gonna get there?

No, I wanna pull up. This is going through the roof.

Right. Pull up here on this flat.

I turned the engine off. Yeah, turn it off.Yeah.

Pop that bonnet for us, mate. What is going on here?

I can feel the heat coming out of it already.

Whoa.

It's about a million degrees in there.

Have we broken something or...? I don't think so.

She's just hot as (BLEEP). You just need to let it cool down.

This is gonna take hours to cool down.

What? Oh man, we're stuck.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

(GROANS) So we can't drive.

No, we can't drive any further.

So, what? Do we just wait a couple of hours, let it cool down,

and then start again or...?Well, where we wanted to prospect

is only about two kilometres that way as the crow flies.

Let's just walk, mate.Walk there?

Oh, God!Well, we've come this far.

If we do that and then come back

when the car's cooled down a little bit...Yep.

..it'll be safer to drive out of here at least.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I suppose we're going prospecting, Andy.

Sounds fair.

It's not gonna be nice for us sneaking along these hills

in 41 degree heat. Well, it's our only option now.

Yeah, well, I've packed a water bottle as well as my pack.

Good.Have you got extra water? Yeah, I have.

It's bloody hot. I'm sweating just from putting this on.I know, mate.

Let's go.

All right. Welcome to camp.

There's the toilet block if you need to go.

You're kidding.

You're not in Kansas now, Dorothy.

NARRATOR: Last week, Andrew's son, Alex, got his first experience

in the remote Palmer River Goldfields in far North Queensland...

(DETECTOR HUMMING) There's another one, mate.

..uncovering a gold rich patch of ground deep in the tropical jungle.

(EXCLAIMS) Have a look at that!

This is the sort of gold we've been looking for all year.

11.27.A $40,000 weigh in.

Oh, that's amazing.Yes! Smashed it!

Well done, mate.Woo hoo! It feels unreal.

Now, Jacqui and Andy are heading back

to find the remaining 25 oz of gold

they need to hit their season target.

Car's out of action for the next three or four hours.

So, we're just gonna walk into this area.

We've been prospecting for the last few weeks

and the gold's been really good, so we want to push in deeper

and try the next system.

All right. What are we doing here?

The creek goes around to the left here.

It's going that way and we need to go this way

because the gully system we want is not far away now.

We just need to get over this hill. (GROANS)

You did say there were going to be big hills.

All right, come on, then. Let's go.

All this grass and dead leaves makes it pretty slippery.

It's steep. You gonna have to be careful.

It's almost two hands to get up here.

Oh, my God, don't fall, okay.

Whoa!

You right?Yeah, I think I'm just about past the worst of it.

(SIGHS)All right, my turn.

Your turn. Go steady, mate. No rush.Yeah.

Oh, God, these leaves are just so slippery.

Doesn't help when you're trying to carry a metal detector up.

Whoa!Hey!Ouch!You all right?

Ah! Ouch! Nah.

ALEX: Check that out. That's a good one.

The weather's heating up.

Let's load this one through.

We're finally back to dry blowing.

This season's been incredibly wet. We have years of it being bone dry.

We build a dry blower and it rains non-stop.

But the weather's past us now, the rain's gone.

The problem is, we're over halfway through the season

and we've just burnt a huge amount of funds buying this big loader.

And to warrant it, we need to see gold coming in.

With this new one, we can move probably

four or five times the dirt but you're burning more diesel.

Ideally, we need 20 oz a week

to be on track for our season.

Mels in the paddock, detecting up nuggets,

dry blower's running. Now, it's all about tonnage.

Push the tonnes, run the dirt.

Hopefully, catch the good stuff.

While Alex is digging, I like to come out with my detector,

and have a good look around.

We just always need to be on the lookout

and hopefully find another area of nuggets

that we can run through The Beast.

Well, time to see if we're catching gold or if we're wasting our time.

The one great thing about this machine

as you run, the concentrate, gets pumped out into this pod.

It's a very quick and easy method to figure if we're on the gold.

No. Three specks of gold.

A sample that size should be 20 specks in there.

This dirt's not worth running.

Spending more in diesel than we're making.

We need to be on ground that's gonna pay us.

Otherwise, we're in real trouble.

That is not good. That's gonna be the last scoop.

We just can't run. It's just getting too damp.

Torrential rain forced mining partners

Melanie Wood and Alex Stead

to sideline their $400,000 dry blower, The Beast...

MELANIE: Get in the car! Someone is stealing our loader.

There, there it is.Oh, Alex.

Alex, it's ripped off that steel.

They've gone into a mine shaft. Jesus Christ, that's a write-off.

..and after their loader was destroyed...

So this is the...Yeah, this is the girl.

I could meet in the middle at 150.

I don't want to go below that.Okay.

..they were forced to invest their remaining savings

into a replacement to keep their season alive.

What do you reckon?Yeah.

All right, 150.Legend.

No worries.Appreciate it.

Hey.Hey.

You don't sound very happy.

No. Well, I've done test pans,

there's a few specks but that's it.

It's not what I want to be seeing.

So, have you got any good news for me?

Okay, that sounds like gold. Yeah. Sound a bit happier now?

Come on, let's have a look. Put your hand out.

Oh, yeah.

Perfect size for the dry blower as well.

Small nuggets.Yep.

The only problem is,

it's about a kilometre away.

Right. That's a big drag for this machine.

I think it's worth it, though.

Yeah, well, you know what? We're not getting anything here.

So, let's get onto that ground and give that a whirl.

Go and find some more of these. I reckon so.

The good thing about this design, it's mobile.

And if you're not catching gold, we can drag it off,

move it to another spot and start again.

But every time we move this machine, we've got to move it very slowly

(STRAINING) and very carefully.

Because out here, it's not like we can run down to the local shops and get a spare.

Kilometre is gonna take us a good couple of hours to get there.

So, I'm hoping nothing goes wrong.

Our season could literally be riding on this drag.

All right. Chains coming in.

Nice and gently.

Good job.

All right. Ready to go?All good.

All right, here we go.

Ooh, it's heavy.

Oh, it's really heavy.

It's about 12 tonnes, it's dragging right here.

Oh it's gonna be a slow, rough ride.

It's got a number of things to move.

The main frame of the dry blower is the big part.

There's a conveyor and a genset.

So, all up, three trips.

It's vital this gets up there all in one piece.

And, so far, the chains are holding.

All right, Alex. That's exactly the spot where I found all those nuggets.

All right. That's the main part of the puzzle.

I've just gotta go get the generator.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Woah, steady.

Wind caught it a bit. Settle down.

We get some pretty high winds out here when the ground heats up

and it creates these high pressure pockets.

And because it's so flat out here, there's nothing to block it.

So, yeah, it gets a bit crazy.

All right, we're down.

All righty, onto the conveyor.

This is going a lot faster than what I thought it would.

We should be putting dirt through here in no time.

Okay, let's get this thing moved.

The winds picking up a bit, Alex.

Be careful.

It's swinging a little bit.

Jesus!

Oh, easy, Alex.

We can't afford to damage this.

If we do, we're done.

Whoa!

(BIRD WHISTLES)

RUSTY: At the moment, we've got two weeks left in the season

and we need another 12 oz. That's 6 oz a week,

but it's getting hot.

Air is gonna be bloody 40, 42, 44.

This ground temperature will probably get to 67 degrees today.

With this heat and conditions, it's gonna be hard work

What do you reckon of that, Shane?

It's got some hard base on it, that, plenty of soft stuff at the top.

SHANE: That's good. It's an old riverbed.

Or part of a riverbed.

It's a softer area, given a chance for the gold to settle in there.

What do you think?I think this material here looks good, Russell.

I'll sample it 'cause some of the gold here is hit and miss.

We've still got a heap of gold to find

to make target, 30 oz.

Yeah, we could just pick up a big pot of gold here.

It happens like that around here, you know that.

I'm just going to pan it off.

Good luck. Don't fall over. Yeah, okay.

I'm hoping to get one or two specks. Anything over that's a bonus.

But all I can say is it's that hot and my eyes

are that watery with sweat I can't even see my pan.

Even me old bloody hat's about to throw it in.

Well, I'm seeing nothing spectacular.

And the problem is, the heat against the gold is not weighing up.

We've got to do something alternatively.

Hey, Rusty.

What do you think? It's not a good sign.

There's only about five dollars in that sample.

We'll never make our target at that rate.

We need 6 oz this week. That's the problem.

There's only the two of us here. Dad's gone.

Why wouldn't you with this heat? So what do you suggest?

Well, we're on the high side here. How about we go down to low side,

should be some more fines washed down there.

That's all we can do.

Well, let's just get on with it.

Ooh.Come on, Rusty. Keep going.

Hey, hey, hey! Have a look at that.

Oh, yeah. Now, we're onto it.

Last week, diminishing gold returns

forced Shane Calegari and Russell Nash

to relocate their dry blower.

Let's crank her up and get on what? BOTH: On the gold.

..to promising new ground on their Fantasy Gully lease.

Shane! It's just broken a belt.

That's the end of that, Russell.

Despite mechanical breakdowns...

That's five. That's seven. Seven point one five.

That's brilliant. That's about $25,000 worth, Shane.

Twenty-five thousand dollars-worth.

..they had their most successful weigh-in of the season.

We can do that again. We're going to make target.

But now, with last week's patch exhausted,

the pair are moving downstream, hoping the ancient river

that once flowed through here could've carried gold further along.

I mean, there's been good gold there

so it should have shed down here if we were on the low side.Yep.

What do you think about this? I think anywhere around here.

Bit of pot luck here as you well know, Russell.

We need to find out where the old channel was,

'cause that's gonna be where the gold's gonna lay.

Rightio, round you go.

Nothin' better than chewing a bit of dust in 45 degrees, is there?

As long as you're finding gold, I don't care.

Back to the red stuff again. Yep, back to the red stuff there.

The red is where the river will be. The clay sort of material.

It's a different colour here It's got little bits of ironstone

and clay and all that sorta caper.

That's a good thing. It's looking promising, Russell.

It's how I like it.

Pretty happy with this.

Show me the colour. It's all I wanna see.Okay. All right.

Oh, ha, ha. Russell, was I seeing things?

All day long. That's payable, that's for sure.

Let's go get the dry blower.

The old dry blower has done a fair bit of work for us over the period of time.

It's been a very serviceable machine for what it is.

It's pretty simple. You chuck dirt in the top and then it filters out the gold.

Rightio, let's go.

Is there a rock underneath there or what?

No, it's just bogged. It's bogged in.Be all right.

Come on, Rusty. You can do it.

There she goes.

I tell you what, he's very skilful at this.

Just got to be careful this doesn't run me down the hill.

It'll run me over.

Woo hoo hoo!

Oh, gee! Russell!

Stop!What?

We got a flat tyre. Ah, what do you mean?

Well, what I mean, Russell, we've got a flat tyre.

How much more do I have to tell you?

ALEX: Woah.

That nearly got away from me.

A big gust of wind just took it.

Lucky. Very lucky.

Holy moly. God, I nearly had a heart attack.

That chucked it about a bit more than I'd like.

Yeah. It was a little bit scary.

But um, luckily, the welds held

and, uh, we still got a conveyor belt.

All good?All good.

No time to mess around. Get fired up. Get producing.

Yes, obviously every time you move to a new site you're taking a huge risk but, um,

you know, I'm hoping that it's gonna be really rich out here

but you just never know until you start digging the dirt up.

Okay, here we go. All right. Come on.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

So, basically, the dirt goes through the screen,

the screen filters out the pay dirt from the large rocks

and that dirt then goes over our dry blower jigs

that use vibration and air to separate the gold.

The waste material flows out the conveyor belt

and the gold gets pumped out into a very fine concentrate

that we can pan off at the end of the day.

It's been a season of high hopes. The new machinery,

then the weather went and dashed them,

and one thing and another, the season's slipping away,

and we've not got the production we should've had.

But I'm hoping at long last we're on a good patch.

If we are, we can turn things around.

It's been a tough few months, but, you know, everything is running smoothly.

The sun's out. Now, it's about tonnage.

So, we've gotta get that dirt through.

And I'm hoping that we can see some gold on the table soon.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(DETECTOR SURGING) All right. Got a signal here.

(GRUNTS)

This is really tough here, so that's a really good sign

that's definitely a piece of gold and it's a real screech to.

So, let's see if that's out.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Oh, check that out! Oh!

Oh, that's a beautiful piece.

That's probably about $350, almost $400 piece.

Oh, it's only a little one, but...

gold is gold, better than steel.

Oh, there's a bit of a spillage there.

Aagh!

Well, that's not right.

The dirt is spilling off the side of the conveyor,

with that constantly going,

it'll fill up under the conveyor

and eventually they'll clog the conveyor from underneath.

Dirt will get into the head roller, the conveyor will stop.

That's a major issue.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Geez, this is stinking hot.

I can't hardly touch this damn thing.

The last thing we needed. You're lucky I got a jack with me.

Bloody brace is red hot, Russell. Can hardly touch it.

All done?Yeah. I'm ready to go.

Okay.Rightio, don't get under it.

Hang on. I'll hang on the tyre. Yeah.

Rightio.I got it.

Are you right with that?Line it up.

What's going on? Don't tell me it's not the right one.

I don't think we've got the right one.

That's the one we brought up here.

Gee, one thing after another.

If it's not the right tyre, let's just tow it flat. We haven't got far to go.

Grab a pump, put some air in. I don't care. Let's just do it.

It's stinking hot.Wasting time.

Let's lift it back on. Go straight on.Straight on.

As long as it pumps up enough air into it.

Just get over there.

See how we go.

All right.Yeah. Go for it.

Is that going up? Slowly. But it's rising.

Oh, yeah, it's rising now.

Get enough air into it just to get it over there.

Not much else we can do.

That'll do. Let it down.That's it. Okay. Let's get on with it.

Tighten it up half a turn back. Away you go.

The wind's in our favour at the moment.

Wind's blowing in the same direction. Quite constant.

So, I'm not going to get dusted out, hopefully.

That's the worst thing with dry blowing. The dust is just incredible.

As soon as we get this set up and get on it, we're gonna be making money.

Rightio. Right there.

Right, let's go.

Come on. Come on.Let's go.

Let's get on the gold.

It's working.(BLEEP)

Back to Dusty Rusty again.

But if we can make a dollar out of this, it's what we gotta do.

Hey, Rusty! Looks like you got this under control.

I might just go and have a detect. Yeah, for sure.

Russell's pushed the dirt up where the dry blower is,

I'm now metal detecting over the top of it.

(DETECTOR SURGING)Rightio!

I've got a target here somewhere.

(DETECTOR SURGING)It sounds good.

Shaney's got a sound.

Let's get on the gold.

I think the sun's doing something to me.

I think the brain's getting a bit cooked.

(DETECTOR SURGING)Ah ha ha.

Beautiful.You got something there, Shane?

Yes, Russell. I've got a little bit of gold here.

It's in the quartz.Piece of gold or speccy.A speccy.

But I'll tell you what, I'm getting delusional about this weather.

Suck it up, big boy. That's what we need.

You know what that means. It means we're close to the source.

Good on you, Rusty. I'll keep going.

Another ten of those. We're onto it.

Speccy or specimen gold

is gold still encased in quartz.

The jagged piece's limited weathering

suggests it hasn't travelled far from its source.

Shane's found some nice gold.

Can't complain with that, but the heat's getting to me as well.

(METAL CLANGING)

Ah, now I've broken the hook.

That's good, Russ. That's good.

(GROANS) I've bent it.

Oh, let's shut it down and fix it.

I just messed up. I mean, I'm just trying to go too fast sometimes.

I've busted the chute that basically filters out large rocks.

You just make a mistake

and this one can be a costly mistake.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

JACQUI: Oh!ANDY: You all right?

I landed on my knee.

I'll come down a bit. You see if you can pass your detector up to me

so you've got both free hands.

Yeah. All right, hang on. I'll just get a little bit further.

Ow.Nearly there, mate.

Here you go. I reckon I can get your detector now.

There we go.All right. Okay, I've got this.

Oh, my bloody knee hurts. I'll tell you that.

Okay.Oops.Don't you fall.

(CHUCKLES)I'm right here.

One last push.There you go.

Yep.That's the worst of it, mate.

It's not so deadly from here on in.

You all right?Yeah, I'm all right. I'm not broken.

Rightio, I hope there's some good gold on the other side of it after all this.

(EXHALES) Oh, wow, that was a mission.

I'm worn out and I haven't dug a hole yet.

Same. But we're pretty much on top of this system now.

You can see it's got, like, that area down there.

And then, it goes all the way across.

I'll head straight over this hill and drop in,

if you want to follow the ridge line down and drop in down further.

Yeah, and we'll see if we can track down some gold.

Rightio. We'll go and change that. Get some gold in your jar.

(LAUGHS) Good luck, mate.See ya.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

The sun's just relentless today, like this heat is unreal.

It's pretty dangerous to be out in this sort of country in 40-degree heat.

But it's the most stressful time of the year,

because when we are approaching the wet season

it means that our season is nearly over.

So we just have to keep pushing, despite the fact that it's really

not a good environment or probably a safe environment to be doing that.

(DETECTOR HUMMING)

Prospectors go missing in this part of the world all the time.

One wrong decision can cost you your life up here.

Heatstroke can really get you if you're lost in the bush

for a few days and your water runs out.

You're as good as done. This is a dangerous gig.

Prospectors die every year in Australia.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Got a target there.

All right.

(DETECTOR SURGING)Where are ya?

Oh. Oh, nice. A couple of grams there.

That's a good piece.

Awesome.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

It's crazy hot. You can't escape it.

(DETECTOR HUMMING)

Best thing about working a gully like this is

just knowing that there is gold in here.

We've already proved that.

So just taking my time to make sure I check all the spots it could be.

(DETECTOR SURGING) That's a target there. Oh.

Nice big crevice up against this bedrock here. Come on.

Woo! Okay, now it's a big target.

And we're in pretty deep here.

That's a pick in the hole. Started off up here

so this is a really decent signal.

That's amazing.

Will be happy to get it out though.

All right, we are out of the hole.

Come on, come on. You wanna be gold.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

And there it is. Oh!

Oh, it's bigger than I thought it was gonna be.

Amazing!

I reckon that's going to go about six grammes or so.

And probably another six or seven or eight hundred dollars even.

This gully has been good.

This whole area has been fantastic.

It's actually been worth the walk today.

I'm not gonna be walking back to the car

upset or disappointed, that's for sure.

I'm getting really worn out, though.

(DETECTOR HUMMING)

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Getting a bit of a head spin.

Oh!

(PRODUCER SPEAKING)

ANDY (OVER RADIO): Yeah, I got you.

(PRODUCER SPEAKING)

ANDY (OVER RADIO): Yep. I'm on my way.

(PRODUCER SPEAKING)

ALEX: Conveyor belt's not working quite as it should.

It's causing a bit of spillage.

I just didn't align it quite right when we were setting it up.

You move a big machine, there's lots of parts,

they all have to go back correctly.

Otherwise, you get these little problems.

So, I'm gonna come around the other side.

Touch it with the loader, see if I can just push it a touch over.

All right. Just give it a shove.

Gently does it.

Gonna grab another bucket, chuck it through,

see if this little fix has saved us.

All right, in we go. Any second now we'll know if it's overflowing.

And we haven't got a spillage. Wonderful.

Right, we can get to processing and make some gold.

Hit our target. Smiles all around.

Woo!

The thing that I admire the most about Alex is his work ethic

and just the way that he handles situations

because gold mining is a tough gig.

He's very patient and he loves what he does out here.

(DETECTOR SURGING) Oh! Got a signal!

I'm gonna check this out. Hey.

It's a bit tougher ground here.

(DETECTOR SURGING) Well, that's out of the ground.

God, that sounds amazing. Let's see what we've got.

In my hands.

(DETECTOR SURGING)There it is.

Oh, that's a beautiful piece. Look at it.

Quite smooth.

Oh, my God. This is a really good sign that the lease is gonna produce for us.

I'm really excited. We're on the road to finding more gold.

Well, everything is going reasonably smoothly.

Really slamming them tonnes.

That should be good for another test.

(OVER RADIO) Mel, you got a copy?

Yeah.I think we've run enough dirt. Shall we shut down and clean up?

Sounds good to me.

Well, let's shut down.Yep. Let's hope it delivers.Yeah.

All right. Let's pan this dirt down and find out if we've got some gold.

We got a week's worth of concentrate to get through.

Yep.Let's find out if Melanie's patch paid off.

I hope so.The pans will give us a good indication.

Earlier in the week, we literally only saw three specks of gold.

So, I'm hoping every scoop of this, we'll see a gramme or two of gold.

We certainly need it. If we see that

we know it's gonna be a good cleanup.

If we don't, it'll be a disaster.

All right, how's your pan looking?

Look at that.

That's actually pretty good.

That's definitely good paydirt. Yeah.

Check that out.That's amazing.

That's a lot of gold.Yeah. That's the scoop.

We've got a lot more dirt to get through.

Well done!(CHUCKLES) That's awesome.

Good to be back on the gold.

Jacqui should be around here somewhere.

There she is under this tree.

Hey mate, you all right?

Hey. Oh, I'm glad to see you.

I'm glad to see you're still sitting up.

I was a bit worried about you from that radio call.

I'm cooked. Just that heat's getting to me, man.

I was just on a patch and like, I just was digging

and digging and digging, but the heat just got to me.

All right. Brought some of these back.Nice.

That'll replace the salts and electrolytes in your body, mate,

after sweating it all out.

That'll help get you back on your feet, eh?

Thank you so much.

That's all right. The best thing is you just need to chill out and relax a bit.

Stay in the shade. Drink as much as you can.Huh huh.

Have a proper rest and get your thoughts back together.

I might head back over to my spot where I was working.

I was getting a few all right nuggets there.Yeah, good.

My radio is still on. If you start to feel bad

or whatever again, just we'll head off.

Yeah, okay.Rightio, mate.

Thank you very much. That's all right.

That radio call concerned me a lot.

You know, we can't have that sort of problem this deep in the bush.

If she'd have waited just an hour or two,

it could have really gone bad.

Not a breath of breeze down here.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

But it keeps throwing up those sounds that I want to hear.

Come on.

I'm running out of energy. (GROANS)

There's only one reason to work this hard when you're this hot and that's gold.

Where are ya? Come on big nug! Make my day.

(DETECTOR SURGING)All the walking I've done today,

I deserve a decent bit. I saw it. (CHUCKLES) Yes!

That's the best one I've got today.

There's probably eight grammes there, maybe

$10,000 worth of gold. Straight up. Whoo!

I'm certainly feeling better, which is a relief.

We've been finding a bit of gold throughout this area,

so I just wanna make this worthwhile and keep detecting

because this ground here is pretty good.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Yeah. That's a target there just in this crevice here.

(DETECTOR SURGING)Definitely.

Yeah, all right, all right. Let's see what you are.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

All right, I got it out this time. Let's see what it is.

There's a big signal. I didn't think it would be too far away.

There it is.

(EXCLAIMS) Right there!

(DETECTOR SURGING)Beauty. Another chunk of gold.

Probably four or five grammes in that one.

Maybe about $500 worth of gold. That's awesome.

Another one for the jar.

Starting to get a few now. Whoo!

This is gonna pay off.

(DETECTOR HUMMING)

I just wrecked it. What's that?Just wrecked it.

What do you want me to do?

Find me some gold so I can retire.

I've got a small, small clip. Just gotta make it work.

Still. Come on.

Everyone's done dumb stuff, I'm sure. Not just me.

I got this. (CHUCKLES)

It's not pretty, but it's gonna work.

Same as Shane. (CHUCKLES)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

That'll do it.

All right.

It must be the heat. It gets to you. You do dumb stuff.

Stop doing the dumb stuff.

Just slow it down a bit. Take it easy.

It's stinking hot. We've been doing all right.

We've been getting a few speccies,

which could mean we're close to the gold source, so I've just got to keep going.

Shane's doing really well with the gold but, um,

don't think his health is doing too well.

I think he's suffering heat stress. I mean, it does get you up here.

He'll be struggling. He won't tell me but he looks it.

Come on, where are you?

(DETECTOR SURGING)Oh.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Gee, there's a big sound here.

(DETECTOR SURGING)

Oh, look at that. A big piece of gold in there.

Look at that. In the quartz again.

This bit of material looks like a boomerang.

This is a very, very good bit of material.

Look at this. Gold all through this. I love it.

The winds changing.

What we don't want.

That will shut us down if I've got to sit in the wind.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Ah, here we go.

That wind's turned.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Pretty much up to the very tippy top of this gully now,

and no nuggets for a while.

I'd say I've pretty much finished this spot now.

Hey, Andy, you got a copy, mate?

I'm pretty much done here.

I haven't got any more targets, and I've finished the gully.

Yeah, I'm much the same.

I can't wait to get out of this sun. It's been brutal today.

All right, let's meet back up and then head back to the car. All right.

Come on, legs. One after the other.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

It's a long hike out still, mate.

I know.We seem to be spending half our day just walking.

And that whole water thing was just a massive wake-up call for me.

We can't be relying on this much walking to get to the gold.

It's too dangerous.Agreed.

Let's do a weigh-in and see if all that hard work was worth it.

Yeah, big time. See how we went.

Well, there you go, 2.89 oz.

Yeah, right.Which is not horrible.

There's 10 grand there, but you think we've still got 22 oz

to go to get this target and the seasons disappearing quick.

We do need to come up with a plan to prospect this ground,

because what we're doing now is risky and dangerous...Yeah.

..and the rewards aren't high enough.

We've just got to find a safer way to get in there,

because at the moment it's just too dangerous.

All right. Well, let's figure out a plan.

I don't think my little legs can handle much more of that.

At least we didn't walk out of here empty handed.

No, that's right. We didn't go backwards.

Oh, that wind's turned, Shane.

That's it. We'll shut this thing down and get out of here.

How good's this going to be?

Listen to that. (CHUCKLING) Silence is bliss.

Well done. We made it.

Don't know how many trays we've done.

I reckon at least it's got to be 50-tonne plus.

That's a lot of dirt.Russell, I'd say absolute bare minimum.

Let's see how this lot goes.

We'll pan up, tally up and see how we went.

Look at the dust. Thanks very much, Russell.

Sorry.Don't you think I've eaten enough bloody dust?

It's done its job. And pretty well I hope, too.

Looking at that, it could be our best weigh-in this one.

Yeah, well, I hope so. We've had an up and down week like usual.

We'd a hot week, that's what it was. It was 30 degrees at night.

Do you have to remind me? Come on, just tip this bloody rock out.

Feast your eyes upon that.

That's 3.05 oz, Shane.

And then we got...The boomerang. ..the boomerang.Yeah.

And this here, that wonderful piece of gear.

That's got full of gold inside. And in here, we've got these

nice speccies there.

Today's money. I know that's all you want to know about.

I want to know about the money. You know that.That's about $13,500.

I'm pretty happy with that. I'm pretty happy, too.

We did go through some pain. Flat tyre on the bloody dry blower,

the heat, whatever else, so...

Ground's looking good, but the gold and the specimens,

that worries me. How're we gonna get gold out of this?

There's plenty of it there, we've seen. Could be our future.

So go to town, speak to some people and see what you can work out.

It's what you do best. Rusty, I will go into town

and I won't come back without a result. Okay?

Well, get going. Good job. Good job this week.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

The best time of the week.Yeah.

Get to see if we're making money or losing it.

Well, you know what? From a week that started off doom and gloom,

you saved the day. You found a patch with awesome gold.Yeah.

You could have found a closer patch but still a kilometre.(LAUGHS)

Doesn't work that way, Alex.

At least we got the machine moved in one piece,

back up and running.

Shall we see what we've got? Absolutely. I'm excited for this.

(LAUGHS) Go on, then.

That looks good.It does.

Oh, look at those chunks in there.

Nice!How's that?

Just over 11 oz.Wow!

That's really good going.It is. And there's a little bit more.

I melted the fine gold down. Oh, wow!

All the fine dust that comes out of the dry blower. Melted that down.

It's not the prettiest little bar, but it's still going to count

Sixteen ounces. That's the biggest weigh-in this season.Wow.

That's what we've needed. Oh, absolutely.

$60,000 right there in one week.

It's been a long time coming, but it just proves The Beast can do it.

Yeah. Oh, that's incredible.

I mean, for 2,000 tonnes to produce 16 oz.

That's what we've been chasing all season. Finally.

Well done. Oh, my God! A few more weeks like this.Yeah.

Run the tonnes, clean the gold, make the weigh-ins.

Let's get back to it. Let's do this again.

Yeah. We're wasting time. Let's get to it.Come on.

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