Original subtitles

Ooh! Come with me!

On the west coast of New Zealand's south island...

Oh, yeah!

...Parker and his team are a week into his search...

Whoa!

...for a cutting edge wash plant...

Oh, my *bleep*!

...and new mining techniques...

This is epic!

...to take back to his claim in Alaska.

New Zealand's home to the most efficient

and innovative gold miners,

as far as I'm concerned, in the world,

so, that's why we're here.

To better understand New Zealand's gold,

the team head 3,000 feet above sea level

to the Tai Poutini National Park

to explore the mighty Franz Josef Glacier.

So, as you can see,

the glacier's been here for millions of years,

but the ice get replenished really fast.

- Did you hear it move just then? - Yes.

So, that's the glacier just shuddering underneath us,

as it moves, it'll make these thumps and cracks, yeah.

Hey, Rookie, what if this thing just decided to just, like...

Close its doors.

Like the garbage compactor in Star Wars.

Well, it wouldn't, which is good for you guys,

and if it did, you would behave much like a toothpaste.

Like a pimple.

They do close up, but they won't close up rapidly.

Oh, my *bleep*!

- We'll keep moving, shall we? - Okay.

- Oh... - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Are you all right?

Yeah, I'm fine.

Tyler has the grace of a new born deer.

Oh, my *bleep*, I'm very out of my comfort zone, I'm from the desert.

Oh, my *bleep*.

Don't know how you did that with a camera.

Hey, just as a warning,

so, we're watching this cloud build up behind us,

you would have known we flew in with no cloud.

And now we've got cloud.

But we think that this gonna blow through.

So, we just gonna be keeping an eye on that.

Got ya.

Lots of quartz.

We're close to the source.

I wonder if anybody ever finds a nugget.

Yeah, look at that.

Yeah!

What do you think of that, Ty?

Well, when we talk about, um,

big glacial movements moving the gold,

this is what we're talking about.

To date, over 300 tons of gold

worth more than $15 billion of today's prices

has been mined on New Zealand's west coast.

The majority was freed from these mountains,

and carried down by glaciers.

How does it work then? Where, what, what do you mean,

"it carries it down," it just breaks the ground up?

Yeah, like, the erosion caused by glaciers is huge.

Right? Just, like...

...thousands of tons of ice grinding against the mountains.

Where's the gold sitting, like?

Well, the gold's, like, in quartz veins.

The glaciers work the material,

and, like, you know, move it from one valley to the next.

900-feet thick,

the Franz Josef Glacier descends the Southern Alps for almost eight miles,

plucking gold from quartz veins as it moves.

The colossal weight of the glacier

grinds it into a fine powder known as flour gold.

As the glacier melts, this gold is released into positive

across the rivers and valleys of the west coast.

That's how by the time it gets to the ocean,

- how we were speaking about how fine it is... - Mmm.

...in the west coast, it's because it's traveled so far

with such huge water movement, it's just broken it down,

and it's made it finer and finer and finer and finer.

Hey, Rookie, there's a definite change going on down the valley, bro.

Yeah, I'm keen to get out of here.

What's happening, Rookie, tell me.

We can see that there's a change in the weather.

Oh, the clouds are coming in.

Are we allowed to fly through that?

We fly underneath it, yeah,

so, it's not quite low enough to shut us down yet.

Yeah, this is ugly.

And if it did shut us down, you mean...

We might just, uh, stay the night up here.

No.

No way. *bleep*

That actually makes me a little nervous!

So, we're gonna go.

Oh, my *bleep*, when the guard's saying, "we gotta go..."

Gotta go!

Are we going straight in the chopper now?

Yeah.

Ty, we better go, come on.

Yeah, I'm trying, Dan.

We're gonna go back through this crevasse.

Ty, speed it up.

- I'm trying! - Foxtrot Oscar.

What are the odds that we get stuck up here right now?

20%.

What? We have 20% of spending the night in the mountain?

Yeah.

We've gotta go!

Well, just keep moving, guys.

Ty, hurry up!

I'm going, Dan!

I can't get my...

Whoa, easy!

Tyler, we need to go.

My fat arse won't fit through.

Oh, my *bleep*.

Thank you.

Not a worries.

All right, come on, guys, it's time to go.

Let's go!

Oh, my *bleep*.

"500 Ways to Kill Parker," we should have called this show.

We've been evacuated so many times.

The team's safely off the mountain,

it's time to get back to business.

Where we going then?

We are going to meet a guy called Pete Haddock.

Ooh, good name.

It is a good name.

He, um, is well known in the area for doing wash plants.

Yeah, I've heard lots about him.

So, I'm hoping Peter will, um,

have something to sell.

Oh, this'll be great.

Parker has placed a $180,000 deposit

on a new claim in Fairbanks, Alaska.

With just ten weeks until the season starts,

he needs a superefficient wash plant to tap

into the site's $11 million potential.

I mean, the biggest problem we've got right now

is we're up against it for time.

If we don't find a plant in-country to buy,

that we can move to Fairbanks

that's gonna be as specialized as I want it,

it's gonna be tough.

Tyler's arranged a meeting with gold miner

and wash plant builder, Peter Haddock

100 miles north in Greymouth,

which was at the heart of the west coast gold rush.

When gold was discovered in 1864

on the Taramakau River, miners flooded the area.

They became masters at finding innovative ways

to catch the fine glacial gold.

And almost 160 years later,

locals like Peter are still world leaders

in wash plant technology.

Peter's known for floating wash plants,

which is something we haven't seen yet.

The dredge?

No, they're, it's a wash plant that floats, basically.

- Really? - Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, it's the same concept of the big bucket line dredges

just instead of a bucket line there's an excavator.

Something that could interest you, Parker?

Um...

...I don't really know much about them,

but I've met a lot of people that have made a lot of money

with floating wash plants, so,

there's definitely something to it.

Right, let's get out.

Let's see what he's got.

- How ya doing? - How's it going?

Pleased to meet ya, Tyler, after we talked on the phone.

Yeah, yeah, great to see ya.

- How's it going? - Good, good. Yeah.

Bloody pleased to meet ya, bud, yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah, well, welcome to the E-Quip workshop.

So, this is where we, um, do all our work.

As well as running his own gold mine,

Peter Haddock has designed and built wash plants

for over 25 years,

and he provides cutting edge Kiwi engineering

to gold miners all over the globe.

I've always felt like gold miners made good plant makers

because they know what works and what doesn't work, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

You guys look like you're building a plant right now, huh?

Yeah, we are, it's land-based, you know, on the skids.

Are you still, uh, doing the floating plants?

Yeah.

I've actually never been, I've seen a lot of photos

and videos, but I've never been around one.

- Oh, really? - A floater. No.

Oh, look, I'd love to show ya.

Actually, the plant that's for sale, but, um,

we're behind schedule on this,

so, we've got a bit of a tight time frame,

- so, I'm a bit balls to the wall. - Right.

Part of me job this afternoon,

um, was to fold up the catch tray, and we were gonna do some rolling.

Um, I can do that.

- Oh, really? - Yeah.

You're the mechanical man, Jeff, are ya?

- Yeah! - Yeah, good, good.

- This is right up Jeff's alley, so... - Yeah.

...if we can take you, and you can leave him?

Yeah, would that be all right, Jeff?

- Sounds good! - Good.

Well, I'll hook you up now to Mike,

our sort of foreman here,

so, Mike'll sort of show you what's going on,

and then we could bugger off out the claim and have a look, ya know?

We've got enough time of the day, I think, yeah, so, that'll be cool.

'Kay, watch out, coming through.

Jeff steps in to take on Peter's jobs at the workshop...

Fun to get my hands dirty, always.

...freeing him to show Parker, Danny and Tyler

the wash plant at his gold mine 13 miles away.

There it is.

Looks different.

Oh, wow!

Isn't that interesting, Parker? Floating wash plant.

Yeah, it's very cool.

Oh, my *bleep*, check that out!

That's crazy looking!

How you doing?

Doing good guys? Yeah!

How cool's this?

Yeah, this is our floating plant.

Beautiful!

So, they're a traditional wash plant,

but basically like a land-based plant,

but it's on a floating pontoon, so...

It's like if a dredge and a land wash plant had a baby.

Yeah!

These plants are the most efficient way of mining.

- Wow. - So, yeah, no, she's a pretty awesome piece of equipment.

That is cool.

How many people do you need to operate it?

It's just a two-person operation, really.

- Two? - Yeah, two just run it nicely.

On the west coast of New Zealand's south island,

Parker gets his first look at local miner,

Peter Haddock's innovative floating wash plant.

Has it sunk before?

It has, Parker, yeah.

Yeah, I've actually got a photo here, actually.

It's pretty horrific, really, she's, uh...

"It's pretty horrific really."

Yeah, so, um--

Oh, like, properly upside down?

Yeah, like, completely upside down.

How'd that happen?

Well, had a new fella on it at the time,

he just overloaded the hopper.

Holy *bleep*!

And, of course, that was us for a cabin,

- but we had it actually back and operating in ten days. - Wow.

So, that's the horror story, but they've been all over now.

I'm just, I'm just here for the carnage.

How does it work then?

They're, uh, moved around by winches,

and, you know, he'll just work his way across,

they take a couple meters at a time,

and that just goes back and forwards across the pond.

It's like a mining typewriter.

Floating atop a 14-foot deep pond,

Peter's wash plant is able to process 115 yards of pay dirt an hour...

...and excavate it.

Feeds pay directly into the plant's hopper

while the tailings fill in the pond on the other side.

This superefficient system uses anchors and winches

to allow the plant to follow the path of the excavator

as it opens up new ground,

eliminating the need for rock trucks and loaders.

Mining this way in Alaska could save Parker hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You wanna go over closer and have a bit of look?

Yeah, that'd be great.

We're gonna ride the bucket, bud!

Oh, mate!

I've never done this before.

Just don't hold onto the pin.

Whoa! Easy!

Don't you dare!

We use the, uh, the old stumps for anchors for our ropes.

What about the winches?

Oh the winches? Yeah, well, we take the weight,

make sure you got a good weight on it,

and then let it round, ya know?

Oh, yeah, there we go!

So, it's easy to move around,

and so it's all that part of the efficiency with the plant.

So, what does this burn for fuel?

Oh, bugger all, really.

This whole setup must run for less than an ounce a day.

- Uh, yeah, it's about a bit over an ounce a day. - Is it?

Yeah, yeah.

But an economical operation compared to have to truck wash

to a plant, as you know all about, ya know?

Yeah, ours is, like, an ounce an hour...

Yeah.

...that we're spending.

Huge difference.

We're gonna hop off then.

Thanks, buddy.

With a price tag of $250,000...

...this could be the perfect plant for Parker...

Would you like to have go?

- All right, sweet. - Right-o!

But first...

...he needs to put it to the test.

How's it going?

This is Parker, so, um, hey, Parker's

coming round looking to float the gold stream ops.

Do you mind if I get some lessons?

Is that all right?

Yeah.

It's pretty hard to, uh, jig under water.

Yeah, you can't see where you digging.

Yeah.

And where'd you leave off?

- Pretty much straight in front of ya. - Gotcha.

I haven't done too much digging under water,

so, I'm probably gonna have, like, no dirt in the bucket.

Yeah.

A scoop of water.

Production's gonna suffer with me at the controls.

- Probably should... - You'll be all right.

...get it figured out or give it back to you in a hurry.

- How's it going, guys? - Yeah, good.

Hey, sorry about that,

I just had a bloody phone call, I gotta go to a breakdown...

- Oh, okay. - ...up the road to fix something,

so, uh, if you guys are happy, then I'll scoot,

- and I'll be back in half an hour, eh? - Yeah.

Good guys, okay.

Keep those hours up, that's the main thing.

I'll catch ya's after.

See ya later, Peter.

- See ya, Danny. - See ya in a bit, buddy.

Take care. You keep a good eye on them, Danny,

- make sure they keep those bloody hours up. - Don't worry, mate.

- All right, bud. - All right, buddy, see ya later.

- Hello. - Hey, how ya doing?

- I'm Tyler. - I'm Breegan, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you!

Can we help in any way?

Well, we have to do a rope change soon,

so, you could give me a hand if you can.

Definitely, I can help with that.

To keep the 38-ton wash plant in reach of the pay,

it's anchors need to be moved every two days...

- Alrighty. - Radio me.

Yep.

...so Breegan mans the winches

while Tyler repositions the anchor ropes.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right, Roger.

Dan, I'm worried I'm not gonna be able to get this off.

No, he's gonna loosen it up, look, there you go.

That one on the far side's loosened.

There you go.

Loosen her off.

- Come on, Ty, get the muscles going. - *bleep* *bleep*

Hang on. There we go.

- Which tree? That one? - I think he said that one,

or that one there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- That one? - Yeah.

Make this tight.

- Put it on the tree. *bleep* That one needs to go... - Yeah.

No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.

- You okay? - Yeah, I'm okay. I've whacked my chin.

- I know you did, I heard it. - Yeah, that hurt.

Let's have a look at your leg. Oh, *bleep*.

That looks pretty bruised.

Oh, *bleep*.

- Are you okay? - Yeah, I'm okay.

Tyler fails to secure the anchor rope in time.

*bleep*

The wash plant is drifting off course.

- Shall I try and grab the rope? - Well, that's too far.

Shut it off, Parker. Shut it off.

Rope's in the water.

This is really embarrassing.

I need it brought around.

- Get it. - Dan, I can't *bleep*

- You can get it, you can get it. - reach that.

How the *bleep*? There's no ledge to go in.

Could get a stick. Get a stick.

Yeah, get it. You get it.

Yes. Well done, Ty. Yes.

Well done.

You don't need to wind it up.

Oh, good, I'll just do all the hard labor.

Yeah, that's right, you will.

You want me to treat you special because you're a girl?

No, I just thought as a friend you'd help me out.

You've got it. It was a one man job.

Bloody hell. Move quicker.

*bleep* It was so heavy.

I thought I was gonna go in the water.

I'm really *bleep* sorry. That was a rookie move.

It happens. It's all good.

Right, what do you need, Ben? Do you want me to run that round there again?

Yeah, round that back around to the front stump.

- That big one? - Yeah, the big one.

All right, all right.

Want me to untangle that a bit?

Haven't seen that technique before.

There we go. We're good.

Oh.

Gotcha.

Here we go.

Back in business. There we go.

After a 30 minute shutdown, they're back on the gold.

That took a long *bleep* time, didn't it?

I feel so bad What a *bleep* show.

Yeah, I'm glad that we're, you know, checking a floating plant out

because I've never really spent any time around them.

On New Zealand's south island,

Parker has one hour left to test drive Peter Haddock's floating wash plant

and decide if it's the plant he needs for his new Alaska claim.

Yeah, I mean, digging underwater

is definitely a little bit weird to get used to,

because in the Yukon we're doing it dry

and I can see exactly what we're doing.

But, yeah, I mean, the huge benefit in this

is it just costs nothing to run, right?

Like, you're digging it straight out of the ground, straight into a wash plant.

And the trade off for not being able to see what you're doing

is, you know, a very efficient mining system.

Here he comes.

After fixing the issue at his other site...

- How you doing? - Peter returns to the mine,

bringing Jeff with him from his workshop.

- What do you reckon, Jeff? - Yeah, that's a nice machine. Really nice.

Good, good.

Parker's been doing a great job this afternoon,

so yeah, hopefully he wants one.

What do you reckon, Parker?

- Pretty slick. - It's really good, you know?

No, it's a great system really.

Yeah, and I would definitely get one, you know?

But, well, there's one big issue.

How old is this unit?

She's 38 years old this year.

Wow.

I really want a modern high tech wash plant,

so hopefully we can see some other ones.

Ones that are newer?

Because I'd like to see more of them.

Well, I can tell you we've just,

this last year in 2021, we bought a beautiful plant up the road.

Brand new, much the same as this,

but all really modern technology.

The winches are all controlled

- from the excavator. - Oh, wow.

I could hook you up with a guy

- and see if he's extra keen. - That would be awesome, yeah.

And could see if JD will actually be keen to meet you guys.

- Cool. - That would be amazing, yeah.

Yeah, it would be great, yeah.

I'll grab some contact details off you.

Yep, that'll be great. I'll give them to you.

- Awesome. Thanks so much. - All right.

- Thank you, yeah. - I feel like a tourist.

I think it's a really successful day.

We managed to get another contact out of it.

His name's JD,

who apparently has the best floating wash plant in New Zealand.

Obviously, it's been really good seeing that,

but if that's like a very average SUV,

the one that we're gonna see tomorrow is a Lamborghini.

Today was a good day.

- It was awesome. - Wicked.

There was a moment where I was embarrassed

to be a part of this group, Tyler.

Can't pick which moment that was.

- I just got off the phone to JD. - Yeah.

He's not too sure about showing us his wash plant and mine site

without meeting us.

- Really? - What?

So if it's okay with you guys, I said we'd go down and meet up with him tomorrow,

and then if everything goes well

he'll agree to take us out there.

- Are you okay with that, Parker? - Mmm-hmm.

Yeah, so we're meeting JD tomorrow.

He's a little cagey about showing us his mining operation,

which I totally appreciate.

He's extremely secretive, from what I can gather,

but I really want access to this floating wash plant

because it's the creme de la creme.

Hopefully it goes well and he shows us his plants and his mining operation.

But for now it's bed time.

Who is this mysterious JD character then?

- He is being a bit mysterious, isn't he? - Yeah.

In New Zealand, you know, the gold game's small and secretive,

and everyone likes to keep their cards close to them.

No, I mean, it makes sense. You know, for me it's like

I definitely wouldn't let just anybody show up with a camera crew

on our mine site.

The trailblazing innovations on JD's wash plant

means he keeps its location a well-guarded secret.

But yeah, JD doesn't want to let us on his mine site

until we've met him.

I'm feeling the pressure. I feel like our character's under analysis.

Well, if that's the case then we're *bleep*.

He's asked them to meet him on the banks of the Kokatahi River.

- How's it going? - Hello.

- Good. - Tyler, nice to finally meet you.

- I know, nice to finally meet you too. - Yeah.

Yeah, I just like to meet people in person first,

make sure you're trustworthy enough to come to site.

Oh, so this is like a stress test?

Yeah, a bit of a sort of stress test.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

What sort of speeds are we talking about in that?

You're doing well over 100 past all the rocks.

- Seriously? - Yeah.

That's crazy.

I don't have the greatest track record with jet boats.

Well, she only takes two passengers,

so couple of people have got to draw the short straw.

- You gonna do that, Ty? - Absolutely not.

No.

- Looks like it's you two up then, hey? - Oh, *bleep*

This is *bleep* a lot.

My mouth's just suddenly gone a bit dry.

- I'm ready. - Man.

The things we do to get on a mine site.

*bleep* hell. Holy.

- You're gonna be like this the whole time, aren't you? - Yes.

- You all right? - Yeah.

JD, you've got an evil glint in your eye, man.

Whoa!

Oh, *bleep* no.

- Split it. Yeah, baby. - *bleep*

No. *bleep*

On the Kokatahi River,

secretive local miner JD is testing Parker and Danny's metal

- Woo. - with a ride in his 2080 horsepower jet boat.

Whoa, oh, *bleep*, no.

Whoa.

How long do you reckon they'll be?

I'd say at least a couple of hours. I don't know.

- What? - Yeah.

So, what, we're just gonna stand here for a couple of hours?

It's a pretty nice day. I don't think they're gonna be in any rush.

*bleep*

Jeff said we wouldn't get wet.

Oh.

Oh, my *bleep*.

Ah!

Oh, mate.

- Did you grow up doing this kind of stuff? - Yeah.

- Yeah, from 16 all me mates had 'em. - All right. Yeah.

We were always motorbiking Saturday, working Sunday.

- What a *bleep* playground. - Amazing.

Shall we go for a walk? There's actually a bit of gold just around here.

- Oh, yeah? - What?

Yeah.

How long have you been mining?

I've been mining for 13 years.

- Gotcha. - And then I grew up around here too,

so all these areas here I was looking around with Dad with the gold pan.

- So, this little creek here has got gold in it. - Oh, wow.

- The only spot around here. - Secret location.

- Yeah. - Yeah, that's quartz.

- So that's a quartz vein? - Yeah.

- That's where gold comes from, quartz veins. - Oh, look.

- You bring a gold pan? - No.

- Should have brought a gold pan, Dan. - Oh, no, really?

Rookie mistake, that. Because we don't have a gold pan.

- Is there nuggets around here? - There could be.

- JD. - What?

Like, everything's, like, guarded, innit?

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

Looks like they're having fun.

- You guys having fun? - No, tons.

- I feel really bad. - Why?

I actually feel really terrible.

I'm really sorry.

- Yeah, right. - It was *bleep* awful.

- JD. - This thing is so slow.

Thanks for showing us that.

- Thanks so much, man. - Yeah, no worries.

- So they passed the test? - Yeah.

- Right on. - See yous at the floater.

- Sweet. - Oh, nice.

- All right. - I feel guilty.

- Don't feel guilty. As long as you had fun. - No, I do feel guilty.

- Don't feel guilty. - I'm sorry.

As long as you guys had fun.

It was one of the *bleep* best days ever..

Initiation passed, JD reveals the location

for his state-of-the-art floating wash plant.

That's the one.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

- That does look impressive. - That thing's pretty nice.

JD spent over a year

researching and designing every detail of this plant to be perfect for his claim.

250 acres of gold-rich ground on a flat valley plain, minable year round,

he floods a quarter-acre pond to allow the plant to float.

- Hello. - How's it going?

Good.

- Oh, this looks great. - Yeah.

Yeah, this is the new and improved six foot floater.

- Wow. - Yeah, no, it's good.

Packed with innovation,

it's the most technically advanced

floating wash plant in the world.

- Shall we go have a look? - Yeah, if that's all right.

- Is that a drawbridge? - Yeah.

You got a copy there, Scotty?

Drop that drawbridge.

- So you just turn the pump off from the tap? - Yeah.

And now he's bringing the screen in,

and he'll drop that drawbridge down.

- All from inside? - All from the digger.

- Mate, that's amazing. This is very clever. - Yeah, very cool.

From within the excavator cab,

the operator uses Bluetooth-connected systems to control everything,

from the winches that move the plant to the waterflow.

Cameras allow the operator to watch the hopper feeder,

trommel, and tailings conveyor.

And a light-up pressure monitor

ensures he is feeding it at the perfect rate.

JD's plant is capable of processing 115 yards of paydirt per hour,

and has a price tag of $445,000.

- How long before these things are running themselves? - Robots.

- It's not far off, is it? - No, literally.

- Yeah, so this is it. - Wow. How long have you had it?

- About six months. - Do you name your wash plants, JD?

It's S6.

- Hmm. - I like that.

One of my neighbors names all of his after James Bond movies.

- Yeah. - Must be a big James Bond fan.

- This is a pretty big platform. - Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of room on this screen.

Like, go sunbathing on the back deck.

- Put some chairs out. - Cocktails.

Oh, it's a bit noisy for that.

We got a really nice water filter system too.

- So it filters the water for the hydraulic ripples. - Gotcha.

Because hydraulic ripples are really good until they clog up.

Right. That's why we took all ours out.

And then we've also got a camera up here behind the trommel

so you can see if you get a jam up on the stacker.

Right. We just wait 'till there's three yards of dirt piled up somewhere,

- and then shut down, and get the shovels out. - Yeah.

You've got a solution for everything.

Yeah.

I haven't been around a lot of floaters

because we don't have a lot of those in the Yukon,

but this is definitely the nicest plant we've seen this whole trip.

So, are you the only one in this area with this exact wash plant?

Yes, I think, from what we can tell,

it's the only one in the world.

- Only one in the world? - Yeah.

That's cool, hey?

From what we can tell, no one else controls it all from the digger.

- You've essentially done what we are setting out to do. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - You know what I mean? Well, yeah, I mean, like,

Parkers needs the perfect machine

- for the ground that he's got in Alaska. - Yeah.

- And you've done exactly that here, yeah. - Your...

Yeah.

What do you think?

*bleep* sick.

- That's *bleep* cool. - Yeah.

I'm ready to ship this thing to Alaska.

This is perfect. I love it.

So, have you mined all that?

Yeah, so that's where we started, about 100 meters out there.

We've mined down and then we've come back over all this,

and that's all our restoration

all ready for planting.

- And then trees will get planted? - Yeah.

New Zealand has strict reclamation laws,

and before permits are granted,

miners must have funds set aside for a rehabilitation plan

approved by the local environmental agencies.

Yeah, so you'll probably come back here in, like, 18 months,

and it won't even look like it's been mined.

- No. No, you won't be able to tell. - Sweet.

And the beautiful thing about floating

is a very good, and well managed,

and environmentally friendly way of mining.

And, of course, we don't want to not look after the environment.

And we don't do it just because we have to, we do it because we want to.

- You can jump on the digger and have a go. - Awesome.

On the west coast of New Zealand's south island,

Parker is testing what could be the perfect wash plant

for his new claim back in Alaska.

This one down?

Gotcha.

- What do you reckon of all this? - Pretty sweet.

Yeah.

- Sweet. We all happy? Okay. - Oh, yeah. Thanks, man.

- Thanks for the lesson. - No worries.

I've been on a lot of wash plants

and this is probably the nicest one ever.

Like, probably one of the more high-tech wash plants in the world, really.

I mean, floating plants have always seemed a bit clunky to me,

but JD's solved that with all of the controls being in the cab.

Like, it's actually an unreal system.

From the cab of the excavator,

Parker can control both the plant's movement and its water pumps

with just a flick of a switch.

Yesterday, when we were on Peter Haddock's he had manual-style winches,

- Yeah. - and this one's set up with hydraulic winches

that he can control from the cab.

So they really thought this plant out.

Yeah, I mean this plant's definitely given me a lot to think about.

It's super simple, one-man operation.

One of the only wash plants I've ever been around

that I've actually enjoyed running.

It's really impressive, actually.

- All good, Parker? - Yeah.

- We'll shut it off and go for a beer. - Okay.

Are we gonna do a cleanup?

I'll be doing a cleanup.

- The camera guys will be going. - Oh, really?

- Yeah. - Can we get the footage from your cameras

on the actual...

- No. - No?

It's definitely been a theme so far

that the Kiwis don't want us to see their gold, which is fine.

We just have to move forward and keep going.

Parker, this is it. Moment of truth.

Park now faces a critical decision.

Is JD's plant right for the rugged terrain,

high in the tundra of Fairbanks, Alaska?

- Oh, what do you think? - It's one of the coolest,

- cleanest setups I've ever seen. - Yeah.

- Yeah? - You really did think of everything.

- I want one of those. Yeah. - You want a new screen?

You get this huge advantage

- in just how cheap it is to run. - Yeah.

But then the big disadvantage

in not seeing what you're digging.

Yeah, so that's where this is quite nice, good floating ground.

- We've got a real flat, hard bottom, - Right.

so it does match up quite nicely.

And the biggest problem in the Yukon, like,

so after our pits are done mined

- it's, like, a bombing zone, - Yeah.

right, of just, like, huge holes.

And because the ground's frozen and it's all permafrost,

a lot of the bigger holes will have frozen gravel in the bottom of them

- Yeah. - that you have to go back in for.

- Right? Right. - So you got to leave it and let it thaw.

I would imagine there's not really a way to do it

- in which you didn't leave that behind, right? - Yeah.

And if the bottom had been all *bleep* over the place,

you would have done it,

- had to probably do it dry, huh? - Yeah, correct.

Well, you've given me a lot to think about.

That dredge was amazing.

But... we're not on ground that it makes sense for right now, I don't think.

So it won't fit for Fairbanks,

- but thanks for showing us that. - Yeah.

- Yeah, thanks so much, man. - Thank you.

- Yeah. - Yeah. Definitely something to be proud of.

Even though we're not walking away from here with that wash plant,

if nothing else I think it makes Parker think,

"I want a machine which is as fit for purpose,

for the ground that's in Alaska,

that this one is to the ground that's here."

The ground in Fairbanks is just not floating ground,

but of all the plants I've seen

that one makes me think most about, like,

really changing up our mining style

if we find another piece of ground

that it would suit.

It's a real shame that this plant

won't work in Alaska because of the ground,

but yeah, I bet if it did

Parker would have one in a heartbeat.

This has really set the tone, moving forward,

about what kind of innovation and technology we want to see.