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hunting outback gold s01e03
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00:11The Australian Outback, vast, remote, hostile.
00:25For two men, this is the backdrop to a lifelong obsession.
00:31This is what we do. This is who we are.
00:34A childhood pact.
00:38To solve a 100-year-old mystery.
00:43We've been called eccentric and all sorts of different things.
00:47Finding Australia's El Dorado.
00:49A lost fortune in gold.
00:56Clues from one man hold the key.
00:59I think he did find it and he actually wanted somebody else to find it as well.
01:06In 1897, Harold Lasseter staggered out of the desert.
01:14Claiming to have discovered a massive outcrop of gold, known as a reef, worth billions.
01:22Decades later, while on an expedition to rediscover his fortune, Lasseter perished.
01:31Taking to the grave the secret location of his gold.
01:37Now, a new expedition is out.
01:41To discover the truth.
01:43Coming in real fast, eh?
01:46Survive the Outback.
01:48Steak, steak.
01:49Big brown.
01:50Oh, whoa.
01:50And just maybe, become billionaires in the process.
01:54Look at that.
01:55Bad income.
01:56Check this out.
01:57We found gold.
01:58Yes!
02:09Last time.
02:10Whoa.
02:11Hot on the trail, Andrew and Brendan discovered a remote cave where Lasseter may have camped.
02:18I'm just keen to see if there's any human activity.
02:22Oh, my goodness me.
02:23Historian Tanya found evidence of a troubled man, deeply affected by the Great War.
02:30The more evidence we gather about Lasseter, the more complicated and contradictory he becomes.
02:39I've never had the opportunity to actually cook rocks.
02:41And a surprise find.
02:43We've just found gold, boys.
02:45Injected the team with fresh hope.
02:48We've just found gold.
02:49Where there's one sniff of gold, there's more.
03:02It's pretty mountainous terrain, you know.
03:04There's only oats.
03:06Beneath the imposing granite peak of Haast's Bluff.
03:10I'll tell you what, that's an amazing piece of rock.
03:18Best friends, Jeff Harris and Brendan Elliott, joined by geologist Andrew Bales, are following
03:26the trail of Lasseter's 1930 mission to rediscover his lost reef, taking them into one of the most
03:34remote places on the planet.
03:41As far as you can see, you're the only man there.
03:44It's like being on the moon.
03:46I've been to a lot of places and I think that probably the scariest place is out there, mate.
03:58The country itself is extremely harsh.
04:05Vehicles will stop.
04:07You could potentially end up perishing out in the desert without the right resources, food and water.
04:13You're not going to be found.
04:17I've been searching for Lasseter's reef now since I was 10 years old, so that's 42 years now.
04:23We've studied it that much.
04:25It made it easier for me to try to put myself in Lasseter's footsteps, in his mindset too.
04:32What was he thinking?
04:33And sometimes I'd even say there, will you bloody help me mate, you know?
04:40There's a lot of clues, really.
04:43The research I've done is all pointed towards Lasseter's telling the truth.
04:48So if anything, he'd left the clues for someone like ourselves to go and find it.
04:56On our way, that little billy, eh?
04:58That's it, mate.
04:59Little billy.
05:05Now 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs, the team are heading to what was Lasseter's base camp, at a place
05:13called Il Pili.
05:18Dry country like this.
05:19The water was key.
05:20Yeah, it was a key factor.
05:22Yep.
05:24Il Pili was the ideal base camp for Lasseter's 1930 expedition.
05:29It had a permanent water supply and a ready-made air strip built by a surveying team just months before.
05:38From here, the plan was to go hunting for the reef.
05:42From the air.
05:46Lasseter took just one flight from Il Pili.
05:49That was all he needed.
05:52From the air, he claimed to have spotted key landmarks he recognised from his 1897 gold discovery.
06:01His words were, there's three hills looking like three women wearing sun bonnets, and a fourth hill which looks like
06:08a Quaker's hat with the top cut off.
06:10That's what we're searching for, because we know the reef lies not far from there.
06:15In an attempt to locate the same crucial landmarks, Geoff is planning to follow the exact flight path that Lasseter
06:24took nearly 100 years ago.
06:27We find those hills, we find the gold.
06:31He plans to follow his footsteps all the way out to Pili.
06:34Then we're going to actually carry out a flight, see if we can see anything from the air that represents
06:41what Lasseter actually spoke about.
06:46Pretty rough.
06:48It's rough, Alex.
06:49Yeah.
06:51That wheel looks dodgy man, look at it.
06:55Oh, oh yeah.
06:56The trailer doesn't look like it's going straight.
06:58No, you better pull up and check it.
07:01The field is not right?
07:03Something's not right.
07:11Oh, look at that.
07:15That's unreal.
07:17It's amazing.
07:21Whoa.
07:23Oh, boy, she's shredded, eh?
07:25Oh, Jesus.
07:27Yeah, we've got a bit of a flat tyre.
07:29There's not much left of it.
07:30No, I'd say we just did a good-sized rock pack there.
07:33Hopefully we don't get too many more, because we've only got one spare.
07:38Well, Lasseter had his own problems.
07:40I suppose it's only fair we have a few of ours, eh?
07:46Oh, hill-pillar. Here we come.
08:00Two thousand kilometres away, the team's fourth member, historian Tanya Evans, is continuing her own investigation into Lasseter.
08:11What we hope to achieve while we're here in Melbourne is get some sense of what kind of man he
08:20came to be.
08:21hoping to piece together the early bits of Lasseter's life, perhaps his boyhood.
08:32So we're trying to figure out a little bit more about his personality, his characteristics.
08:38Was he poor? Did he have to work hard to survive?
08:42We don't know answers to any of these questions there.
08:47We found some details about Lasseter.
08:52He was born in 1880 in Meredith, in Victoria.
08:55Ah, here we have an article from the Colac Herald, which was published in Victoria from 1875 up until the
09:04end of the First World War.
09:08Friday, the 11th September 1896, a lad well-known locally was lodged in the lock-up last evening.
09:20Charged with committing the recent robbery at Messrs Bellier and Fulton's establishment.
09:28So here we have Lasseter calling himself Lewis, but we know in 1924 he changed his name to Harold.
09:38Oh my goodness me, loaded revolvers when they were looting the premises.
09:44Crikey, this is an armed robbery, it's not just a robbery.
09:46He's 16 years old and he's involved in an armed robbery.
09:51Wow.
09:55Bloody hell.
09:57Great tyres, are these?
09:59Yeah.
10:00Ah, these are the best.
10:01It's not going to go any further.
10:03Ah, so the brand new tyre that we've just put on is just blown out,
10:06and it's the second tyre in about within 60 kilometres.
10:10That's put us in a bit of a weld of hurt.
10:13We've got no spares.
10:15We're in strife.
10:25It's not repairable right now, we haven't got any valves either.
10:28There's no valve in it or anything, it's all gone.
10:31Deep in the outback, 300 kilometres from help,
10:35Geoff, Brendan and Andrew have been caught unprepared.
10:40It was a bit of bad luck having those two flat tyres within 50 kilometres of each other,
10:44and only having one spare, it's a bit of a silly mistake.
10:49I reckon you leave it.
10:50Keep rolling.
10:51Good luck, mate.
10:53We've got about 100 kilometres to go,
10:56and I reckon in about 20 that'll be down to that stub axle.
11:01Not a real good time considering it's late in the afternoon.
11:05The team are now late for a planned rendezvous with local guide, Leo Abbott.
11:11Hey mate, whereabouts are you?
11:15Yeah, you might have to deal with you or you can come back, mate.
11:19Yeah, we're stuck.
11:20We've just blown the second tyre.
11:35With daylight fading, finally Leo, with support driver Rex Spencer, comes to the rescue.
11:44Got a bit of strife here, Leo.
11:47I think we're better off backing up and going back home.
11:50No way we're going backwards.
11:53I didn't come this far to stop here.
11:56The team need a plan to fix the trailer filled with vital supplies.
12:01I've got a trailer with four tyres, five tyres, sitting on it in HQ there.
12:06If have to.
12:08As long as we can get to our billy tonight, if we can get to our billy tonight,
12:11we can worry about the tyres in the morning.
12:13Yeah, we can stash the trailer, take the essentials we need.
12:15I'll take these rims off it so it can't be moved.
12:18Just drop it on the ground so no-one can borrow it.
12:22I'll just get my gear and just shoot into town.
12:24I'll get tyres from HQ.
12:26As I come back with the tyres, I'll put them on
12:28and then meet us back to do a billy with the trailer.
12:31Probably mid-morning.
12:33Perfect.
12:34It's not muck around, it's quarter to five.
12:36Yeah, hopefully we can get there before it gets too dark.
12:40We need to put this table somewhere.
12:43Rex's plan will see him return to Alice Springs,
12:46collect replacement tyres, fix the trailer
12:49and then rejoin the team in Il Pili.
12:53A round trip of 1,000 kilometres and almost two days.
12:59Well, it's nobody's fault, other than Jeff's.
13:03It's always my fault.
13:04Jeff, it's on your side, both flat tyres mate.
13:07A brand new tyre.
13:09Can't blame anyone else.
13:11Yep, but there's actually a road there that will take you
13:13right into that scrub in there.
13:14Oh, perfect.
13:15Perfect spot.
13:16Excellent.
13:17It's pretty good, Dad.
13:20Nice.
13:21Let's go, man.
13:21We'll get into it.
13:23Thanks, Rex.
13:25The team can't afford any more delays.
13:30Driving in the outback at night is notoriously dangerous.
13:34Dirt roads, combined with large animals on the move,
13:38can lead to disaster.
13:40Yeah.
13:41We've still got probably 70 k's till we get there.
13:44Yeah.
13:44So we'll be just on dark before we really set up camp
13:47and get some food organised.
13:49We don't want to push it too hard or we'll get more blown tyres.
13:51Oh, yeah.
14:09We've made it.
14:20It's been a long day.
14:24But I'm also excited cos here we are at Hillbilly.
14:27To be honest, we might have been wanting to get here for about 40 odd years
14:30and we're finally here.
14:33We're just lucky we have a good crew behind us to back us up.
14:38And we got here safe.
14:57Overnight, a rare cool change in the desert has caught Andrew off guard.
15:02A little bit back.
15:04Yeah, it's soaked.
15:06It was torrential, so I'd gone to sleep
15:08and then at about three in the morning, bang,
15:11water's coming in, you know, things got pretty wet,
15:15pretty sun saturated through here.
15:18It was a rough night.
15:23No one thinks it rains in the desert.
15:25You know, here it is.
15:31No, it's Geoff, mate. I'm just ringing up and checking up.
15:34For Geoff, the unexpected weather...
15:36Yep, righto.
15:37..is causing more setbacks.
15:39Tomorrow?
15:41Alright, thanks, mate.
15:42His planned flight,
15:44retracing Lasseter's aerial search for landmarks,
15:48has been postponed.
15:50The flight's delayed with all this rain.
15:53Oh, that's a shame.
15:54Yeah, it's just too windy.
15:55So, um, I'll be here for a bit longer before, you know, I head off, so...
16:00OK.
16:00This should clear up by another day, you reckon.
16:06Before any searching can begin...
16:09We're following you, mate.
16:11No worries.
16:12..the team need to pay their respects
16:15to the Aboriginal land they're on.
16:18This is a really big, significant site.
16:21It's really, um, sacred.
16:23So, you've got to show that respect and that, too, when you come in.
16:27Yeah.
16:27So, you've got to keep to that protocol.
16:38Hello.
16:39Hello.
16:42I'm Geoff.
16:43Just to come to visit.
16:45I'm Andrew.
16:46Just coming here to visit.
16:49I'm Brendan.
16:50I'm just here to visit.
16:52This is Ilpili Spring.
16:54For thousands of years,
16:56this has been a significant water source for the Pinterbee people.
17:01If I look at the main fella over here,
17:03we might go over and say hello.
17:07Hey, how you going, brother?
17:09Mara?
17:09Yeah, palya.
17:11Mara?
17:11Yeah?
17:12I'm Jack.
17:13I was waiting for you, mob.
17:15Yeah, this is the spring now.
17:16This was an important place for, for my, um, families.
17:20People to be here.
17:21In the old days, this area sacred?
17:23Yep, sacred place.
17:25Is this always, always got to soak, always wet, even in drought?
17:29Always, never run out.
17:31Wow.
17:32All the year round.
17:34This was a really big gathering place.
17:37To have a big ceremony out of.
17:39Oh, right, yeah.
17:40Yeah, because of this water, yeah.
17:41Yep.
17:42Did you know the story of Lasseter?
17:44Um, yep.
17:46My grand brand used to tell me a story.
17:49This is where Lasseter and his camel was drinking.
17:53Just here?
17:54Just here.
17:55Wow.
17:56So we're on the right track.
17:58Yep.
18:00Uh, it's raining now.
18:01Um, we better head back to the car then.
18:03We can have a yarn at the car.
18:04Yeah, we'll do that.
18:05Good idea.
18:06Raining in the desert.
18:13Yeah.
18:15Yeah.
18:19Yeah.
18:19Yeah.
18:19Yeah.
18:20Not many people get permission to come here either, do they?
18:22No.
18:23So we're pretty privileged.
18:25When me and Brennan were ten years old, we learnt about Ipili.
18:30Now we're here.
18:31It's very exciting.
18:34Terence is taking the team to where he believes the airstrip used by Lasseter is located.
18:42Were you told stories about this when you were a boy?
18:46Yeah.
18:46They told me the plane saw the smokes and they landed round here.
18:50Oh, okay.
18:52It would have been like a giant bird.
18:54Yeah.
18:55And they were really scared about it too.
18:58Yeah, really?
19:01Maybe slow here.
19:03Keep going.
19:04Just keep an eye out the windows for anything.
19:08Lasseter always dug a hole and buried like tins or bottles with maps or letters.
19:16Might find something.
19:18Never know.
19:22At the time of Lasseter, this country was in the grip of a seven-year drought.
19:29Photos from the period show the earth stripped bare.
19:35Recent conditions have been kinder, but the regrowth has concealed all trace of the now disused airfield and Lasseter's expedition.
19:45It's hard to believe that this is the actual area where Lasseter took off in his plane to look for
19:51his reef.
19:51Yeah.
19:53You see, Terence, I'm going to do a flight and we're going to come here above Ipili.
19:58Yeah.
19:59And then we're going to fly south.
20:01The same way that Lasseter flew in his plane.
20:04Oh, yeah.
20:05So we're going to try to reenact the exact flight.
20:08Do you think we're at the end of the airstrip now?
20:10Yeah.
20:11Want to jump out, Andrew?
20:13Oh, look.
20:18This is old, Darren?
20:19Yep.
20:20It looks like old.
20:22You've never seen this before?
20:24No.
20:25It's an unusual picket, isn't it, Strange?
20:27It is.
20:27It's round.
20:29I thought it was a stick.
20:31Yeah.
20:32Maybe this is just to mark the rocks for the plane?
20:35Yeah.
20:36If the plane hit this, it'll tip over.
20:38Yeah.
20:46It's unusual to have just one peg in the middle of a field where there's nothing at all and there's...
20:51I can't see another peg anywhere.
21:01I wonder if this is like a corner.
21:04Yeah, cross.
21:05Yeah.
21:06It is too.
21:07It's a cross.
21:09Yeah, I know his cross is that way.
21:11Yeah.
21:15Terence and I would just notice that this is quite a right angle here.
21:19It's a cross.
21:21It's a cross, is it?
21:22It's a cross.
21:22It's north, south, east, west.
21:23And it's like a compass bearing.
21:25Wow.
21:27This is a significant find.
21:30I think so.
21:30I think we're the first ones to find this.
21:33Yeah.
21:41So if we cleaned all this grass up.
21:44You'd see it like a compass bearing.
21:45From the air.
21:46From the air.
21:47From the air.
21:48This is awesome.
21:51That's a cross.
21:51Nice.
21:52I can't believe it.
21:53This is...
21:54This is a substantial marker.
21:58In remote outback Australia, on Pintobee country, the team have made an incredible find.
22:06That's it.
22:08That's it.
22:08It is.
22:09North.
22:09South.
22:11West, east.
22:12Holy moly.
22:14A stone cross.
22:17Accurately indicating the four points of the compass.
22:21To this day, pilots the world over use airstrip bearing marks like this to align their aircraft
22:29compasses.
22:31This is proof that the airfield's here.
22:34What do you reckon, Terrence?
22:35Looked legit.
22:37Yeah, it would have been like that.
22:38And the lad would have looked down, seen the flag flying on your air ride and coming
22:42down.
22:42Yep, absolutely.
22:43And then he landed.
22:44And then he seen your ancestors.
22:47Yep.
22:47And they were quite shocked.
22:48Yeah, they were shocked all right.
22:50Never seen a plane.
22:51No.
22:52We'd like something from outer space.
22:53They thought it was a devil landing.
22:54Oh really?
22:55Did they run away?
22:56Yeah, run away and then came back again.
22:59Yeah.
22:59First man landing on the moon.
23:01Something like that.
23:01Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
23:03When I go up in the plane, we'll fly over this.
23:06If we can leave the sock there, I'll see it from up there.
23:10I'll come straight over and we'll fly from here because we know this is it.
23:14Wow.
23:18That's an airstrip for sure, mate.
23:20It is good work.
23:22That's what we're really chasing.
23:24At the end of the day, we're looking for the clues that Lasseter left behind.
23:28It started in 1930 and ended up with Lasseter's death.
23:32Somewhere in between those two moments was the fact that Lasseter said that he'd found
23:37a reef.
23:46He's on the bike.
23:46I'll tell you what.
23:47She's, I'm glad you put this up straight away.
23:48Great.
23:49That's right away.
23:50Rex is back.
23:52He's back.
23:53And he's got the trailer.
23:54There you go, Raxie.
23:58You've been through some mud.
24:01A bit wet down the road.
24:03Is it?
24:03I borrowed all the tyres off me mate's trailer, so I got another three in the back.
24:07Oh perfect. The way you're going through tyres, I thought you might need him to get home.
24:15Hello. Yeah g'day, is that Geoff Harris? Yeah mate it is. Yeah mate, so you've got a flight booked with
24:22us haven't you? Yeah mate.
24:24Yeah nah we've got it all cleared, the skies have cleared up and it's looking good now.
24:29Alright mate, hearing the flight's back on, I'm racked, I'm stoked. This is what I came out here for.
24:36We can finally get up into the air, have a look at Lasseter's landmark, see if we can locate them
24:41and hopefully locate the reef.
24:44Hey fellas, the flight's back on. Oh awesome. Yeah the weather's cleared up, it's good.
24:52See you later bro Wales. Yeah boys.
24:58While Geoff heads for the skies, Andrew and Brendan return to the airstrip
25:04to find any proof that Lasseter was here.
25:09So look, I'm really excited, we've found the X, the cross, it's a structural thing there for
25:15to show us an airstrip but it still doesn't really prove that this is what Lasseter used and we've got
25:22to keep looking to find something else if we can. I mean it'd be really nice to find some evidence
25:26that suggests obviously Lasseter was here because then we lock it all in.
25:34If they had pulled up somewhere here to work, they might have dislodged something,
25:40moving around, dropped it on the ground. So by circling out radiating from that inner area,
25:47I'm hoping to nail something just down the edge. It's not easy because we're actually we're really
25:52running out of daylight. I have a target. You've got a target. We're on
26:05the money. Really? I'm not sure whether it's iron or what it is but
26:10Well it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter.
26:17All right, we've moved it.
26:18We're ready to spin the top.
26:22Now that's an old tin. How old is that?
26:26This is a piece off a bully beef tin. Yeah, that's great.
26:31Bully beef or tinned corned beef was a staple food item on Lasseter's 1930 mission.
26:40Records show that the expedition carted 200 pounds or 90 kilograms of bully beef.
26:49Which would have totalled 267 tins.
26:54It's that era. That's from these guys. Yeah.
26:58This is a good chance that it puts it in the realm of the period that Lasseter was here.
27:02Yeah. They've sat here in it alone.
27:05Absolutely. It's right here. Yeah.
27:07The fact they're here, we've just got a quick scout here. Yeah.
27:11All right, let's pick up the gold sovereign.
27:20Oh, hang on.
27:22No way.
27:23There is something here.
27:24All right, we can have a look at this.
27:27It's right there.
27:28All right. A little scratch.
27:35It's still there.
27:36It's still there.
27:40What is that?
27:42Well...
27:42It's off a post.
27:46Oh, man.
27:49That looks like brass.
27:52The markings are on it.
27:54That's a brass marker pin.
27:55That's a surveying point.
27:56It's a surveying point.
27:58Man, this is being surveyed.
28:02N-T-L.
28:04N-T-L 162.
28:06162.
28:06Wow.
28:08There's got to be a record of that.
28:09There'd be a record of them.
28:10And if they've made this an S-Trip for a specific reason and registered it,
28:15it'll give us a specific date.
28:18It's awesome.
28:19I know little about these things.
28:21Well, it makes it a definite marker.
28:23This is like the holy grail of proving this up.
28:27I'm just blown away.
28:29What a find.
28:30With the location of the airstrip firmed up,
28:34Geoff can now confidently trace Lasseter's flight path from exactly the right starting point.
28:41Initially, when finding that signal, we're thinking, what's Lasseter buried here?
28:45But to dig that up was just equally as exciting because, you know,
28:48this thing's been lost for years, you know, 100 years.
28:51And now we've uncovered it.
28:53So it's just incredible.
28:54It's great.
28:56All the puzzle pieces line up and start to link.
28:59And the more we can do that along the way, the closer we are to hitting that prime target.
29:04And that's what it's about.
29:05Well, we're about to lose light, mate.
29:07All right.
29:07I know.
29:07I'll have to pull you away from it, but we've got to go.
29:10I just wish I had night vision.
29:13Let's go.
29:18Well, that was bloody great.
29:20Oh, wasn't it amazing?
29:21Oh, mate.
29:21To find that location right there is just, like, out of the box.
29:48So I've just come to Hart's Buff, waiting for the plane to land, repeating Lasseter's flight from 1930.
29:54So I'm pretty excited right now.
29:56I mean, I've waited, what, 40 odd years to do this.
30:00And finally the time's come.
30:05So I think I can hear him coming now, actually.
30:10After all the delays, it's going to be great to get up in the air.
30:25So you ready for this big flight?
30:27Yeah.
30:28No worries, mate.
30:29To faithfully retrace Lasseter's flight, Jeff and Jack will first fly back to Il Pili,
30:36passing directly over the airstrip and taking a bearing from the stone compass.
30:58There's a lot of crosswind here.
31:00Yeah, I feel it.
31:02But if there's something I learned being Irish is you can't control the weather.
31:13Yeah, so Jack, how long have you been in Australia for?
31:16I've been in Australia eight years.
31:19Northern Territory is a very different landscape.
31:22Requires you to be a bit more switched on.
31:26Yeah.
31:27This turbulence that we're getting, because it's such a hot day, it's heated the ground so quickly
31:34that all that hot air free convection is moving upwards at a very fast rate.
31:39When they were doing Lasseter's flights, like I said, they crashed one plane.
31:43Oh, well, I'm not going to do that today.
31:46No.
31:49In the 94 years since Lasseter flew over here, aviation has advanced.
31:56But the country has changed little.
31:59Below, it remains wild, empty and vast.
32:06We are actually going into the middle of nowhere.
32:09Yeah, we are.
32:10Definitely in the middle of nowhere.
32:12Oh, yeah.
32:12Like, now is the middle of nowhere, but Il Pili is even more the middle of nowhere.
32:17Yeah.
32:17Have you ever heard of the never-never?
32:19Why is it called the never-never?
32:21Never-never ends.
32:22Oh, right up.
32:23Yeah.
32:23I like that one better than never-never return.
32:26Yeah.
32:27Well, don't decide, but if you had to go down, are you always looking for somewhere to live?
32:32Out here, the nearest airstrip is 73 miles away.
32:37Yeah, right.
32:38So we're not going to make it.
32:40There are no roads.
32:42There are no paddocks.
32:44Yeah.
32:45At the end of the day, we can only do what we can.
32:50So, Jeff, um, what is it that you actually are looking for at Il Pili?
32:56We discovered a, um, a cross made of stones.
33:01That's the same airfield that Lasseter took off to fly in the direction we'll be going.
33:07Once we get closer to the dock, and what I'm searching for is three hills.
33:11There's also a lake, and about 35 miles away is another, another hill.
33:17It should have a, a flat top on it.
33:20All three of those, if we could find those, would be great.
33:24We know the Gold Reef is close to those landmarks.
33:29Oh, unreal.
33:31Here we are, in Il Pili.
33:35That should be the airfield right down there somewhere, right there.
33:39That's it.
33:46Should be straight down here now.
33:51There it is.
33:53It's beautiful, that round circle there.
33:57You've done it, Jack.
34:01From Il Pili, Lasseter flew on a southwest bearing.
34:06According to his pilot, he spotted his landmarks one hour and 10 minutes into the flight.
34:14Jeff's calculations put that in the vicinity of Doca River.
34:20Right, now we head straight for Doca River.
34:24Yep, on the border.
34:27Safe flight path that Lasseter took 94 years ago.
34:31It's pretty amazing.
34:41In Melbourne, Tanya is digging deeper into some disturbing news.
34:47Here we go.
34:48The Colac burglaries.
34:49In 1896, at the age of 16, Lasseter is accused of a serious crime.
34:58Henry Borum and Louis Lasseter were charged with burglariously entering the establishment of
35:06Messers-Bellier in Fulton on the 30th of August.
35:09The burglary had been perpetrated with great deliberation and care.
35:14Crikey, this wasn't just a chance crime.
35:16This was carefully organized, which again doesn't sound good.
35:20Oh, my goodness me, Lasseter had a mask and both prisoners carried loaded revolvers.
35:28No doubt if they were discovered in the act, they were prepared to take life.
35:33My goodness, what a story.
35:36Well, this does not paint a particularly good picture of Lasseter at all.
35:43Friday, October the 9th, both of the accused pleaded guilty.
35:47The judge was inclined to deal leniently with the accused and ordered that Lasseter should be
35:54detained in the reformatory. We know he's a minor. We have been told that the sentence he was given
36:03was lenient. You know, it could be six months, it could be 18 months. Who knows?
36:10This is October the 9th, 1896, and he is supposed to have discovered the gold at the end of 1897.
36:21If he's in reform school in 1897, then his whole story about being in the outback discovering gold
36:30is not true. This is, this is a real worry.
36:41It's hard to get your bearings around here, isn't it?
36:46A world away from Tanya's shocking discovery.
36:50Yeah, the sky, well, you don't really appreciate it until you get up into the air, right?
36:55Jeff is now approaching his primary target zone.
37:00That's Docker River. Yep. But it's dried up. Yep.
37:04According to reports, it was somewhere below that Lasseter spotted his landmarks,
37:10which he claimed pointed the way to his billion dollar gold reef.
37:15So I'm on the three hills around here somewhere. Three hills?
37:20Yeah, I know. There's lots of them. I know.
37:24I've studied these mountains for years looking on Google Earth,
37:28but now that you're upping the air, it's like, uh.
37:31Yeah, it's pretty difficult. They look different.
37:35Yep, they look the same.
37:39Well, I'm not giving up. We're going to swing back around.
37:42Yeah. And I'm looking for a lake re-border in it.
38:02Yeah, that's not there.
38:06All right, we're actually going over the exact spot that he flew.
38:11Yeah, I want you to head over that way a bit more.
38:21It's green hills.
38:25Come on, Lasseter, give me another flue.
38:33We've found the lake.
38:35I think that's it, don't they? Just there in front of us.
38:37Yeah, that's it?
38:38Yep. Yeah, that's it, mate. That's the lake.
38:43I reckon those three hills will be out there.
38:45The lake is here, right?
38:47Yeah. Well, this is one very distinct hill.
38:51Yeah, it is, eh?
38:51There's another very distinct hill.
38:53There's another one on the other side of it, too.
38:55Yeah.
38:57There's one, two and three.
38:59Yeah.
39:01One, three and three.
39:04And one of them's flat.
39:07The one that's 35 miles away is a hill.
39:11Oh, flat.
39:12Yeah.
39:13Right in front of us.
39:13Yeah, it's a little.
39:15Is that about 35 miles away?
39:19Uh, yep, it's 35 miles away.
39:22That definitely fits the three hills I can see in front of us, too.
39:25Like here, this one, this one, and this one.
39:29Definitely fits the bill.
39:32Well, have you onto something here, mate?
39:34This is amazing.
39:37All right, Jack, could you line us up, mate, so I can get a photo of these hills here?
39:47Beautiful.
39:49We've got it.
39:51There it is.
39:55Got a lot of photos.
39:57When you're ready to turn, you go for it.
40:09Oh, I needed that copy.
40:19We've just got a message on the satellite messaging system.
40:22It says, call me urgently, Tanya.
40:25We'll have to get the Starlink up, then.
40:28You can hold that.
40:29There's two.
40:29Yep, you'll take Ariel and I'll plug it in.
40:36All right.
40:39I think it's connecting now.
40:42Hi, guys.
40:43How are you?
40:44Hi.
40:44How are you doing?
40:45Hey, where's Jeff?
40:47Well, he's up on a flight at the moment, having a bit of a look south of Ill Billy.
40:51Fill us in.
40:51What's the news?
40:52So, what's the urgency with the call?
40:54You said it was an urgent that we contacted you.
40:56Sorry.
40:57I was hoping to get all three of you together, but it's just...
41:00Look, I made a discovery in the archives down in Melbourne, and...
41:03It was a bit of a shock, actually.
41:05I'm afraid I've discovered a glitch in Lassiter's story.
41:39In his chronology.
41:40Yeah, but back to square one.
41:42That's his first story of Fawn and the Reef, and he wasn't actually there.
41:47Well, then...
41:47It's a massive hole.
41:49Yeah.
41:49Jeff's going to be devastated when we tell him this.
41:52Yeah.
41:52Look, I'm going to leave you guys to tell Jeff, and look, I'm going to go back to the archives
41:58and see if I can unearth any other evidence that might suggest otherwise.
42:03But for now, I just felt like I really needed to let you know that.
42:05Okay.
42:06I'll leave you to it, guys.
42:07I'm really sorry.
42:08Thanks a lot, Tanya.
42:09Bye.
42:09Take care.
42:12Bye-bye.
42:13I don't know what to say.
42:14Let's put a spanner in the works.
42:15That's a game changer.
42:17It is, yep.
42:18So, Tanya's saying in 1897, when he was meant to be discovering the reef,
42:23or had discovered the reef, he's actually in reform school.
42:26Yeah.
42:27A long way from where he's meant to be.
42:30We'll have to break this to Jeff and see how he...
42:32Yeah.
42:33Yeah, absolutely.
42:34See where we go from here.
42:36Yeah.
42:39Timeline doesn't seem to be right with Lassar, mate.
42:42You know how to bring a man down, don't you?
42:44I'm not backing out now.
42:45We're going all the way.
42:46Well, hold on now, Brendan.
42:49Don't stop in here.
42:50No, don't stop.
42:50Don't stop in here.
42:51I'm not swimming.
42:56Check this out.
42:57This is amazing.
42:59This is the place.
43:00This is Lassar's Cave.
43:03Have a look at this.
43:05I think that's a great find, mate.
43:06This is something Lassar would have carried.
43:09Jeff or Brendan, are you on channel?
43:12Like, they should have been back.
43:48This is Lassar's Cave.
43:48This is Lassar's Cave.
43:49This is Lassar's Cave.
43:49This is Lassar's Cave.
43:50This is Lassar's Cave.
43:50This is Lassar's Cave.
43:50This is Lassar's Cave.
43:50This is Lassar's Cave.
43:51This is Lassar's Cave.
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