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hunting outback gold s01e03
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00:11The Australian Outback.
00:15Vast.
00:18Remote.
00:21Hostile.
00:24For two men,
00:27this is the backdrop to a lifelong obsession.
00:31This is what we do.
00:33This 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.
00:46Finding Australia's El Dorado.
00:50A 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.
01:07In 1897, Harold Lasseter staggered out of the desert.
01:14Claiming to have discovered a massive outcrop of gold, known as a reef, worth billions.
01:23Decades later, while on an expedition to rediscover his fortune, Lasseter perished.
01:31Taking to the grave, the secret location of his gold.
01:38Now, a new expedition is out.
01:41To discover the truth.
01:43Coming in real fast, eh?
01:46Survive the outback.
01:48Snake, snake.
01:49Big brown.
01:50Oh, whoa.
01:50And just maybe, become billionaires in the process.
01:55For your bath.
01:56Bad income.
01:56Check this out.
01:57We found gold.
01:58Yes!
01:59Oh, no, no, no.
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 a pretty mountainous terrain, you know.
03:04It's only out.
03:06Beneath the imposing granite peak of Haast's Bluff.
03:10I 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
03:34most remote places on the planet.
03:41As far as you can see, you're the only man there. It's like being on the moon. I've been
03:47to a lot of places and I think that probably the scariest place is out there, mate.
03:58The country itself is extremely harsh. Vehicles will stop. You could potentially end up perishing
04:09out in the desert without the right resources, food and water. You'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 studied it that much. It made it easier for me to try to put myself in Lasseter's footsteps,
04:30in his mindset too. What was he thinking? And sometimes I'd even say there, will you bloody
04:36help me mate, you know?
04:40There's a lot of clues, really. The research I've done has all pointed towards Lasseter's
04:47telling the truth.
04:48So if anything, he'd left the clues for someone like ourselves to go and find it.
04:56Well done away to Illbilly, eh? That's it mate. Illbilly.
05:05Now 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs, the team are heading to what was Lasseter's base
05:12camp at a place called Illbilly.
05:17Dry country like this, the water was key. Yeah, it was a key factor. Yep.
05:25Illbilly was the ideal base camp for Lasseter's 1930 expedition. It had a permanent water supply
05:32and a ready-made airstrip built by a surveying team just months before. From here, the plan
05:40was to go hunting for the reef. From the air. Lasseter took just one flight from Illbilly.
05:49That was all he needed. From the air, he claimed to have spotted key landmarks he recognised from
05:57his 1897 gold discovery. His words were, there's three hills looking like three women wearing
06:06sun bonnets and a fourth hill which looks like a Quaker's hat with the top cut off. That's
06:11what 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
06:23that Lasseter took nearly 100 years ago. We find those hills, we find the gold. He plans
06:31to follow his footsteps all the way out to Illbilly. Then we're going to actually carry out a flight,
06:38see if we can see anything from the air that represents what Lasseter actually spoke about.
06:46It's pretty rough. It's rough, eh? Yeah. That wheel looks dodgy, man. Look at it. Oh, oh yeah.
06:56The trailer doesn't look like it's going straight. No, you better pull it up and check it.
07:02The field is not right? Something's not right.
07:10Oh, look at that. That's unreal. It's amazing. Whoa. Oh, boy, she's shredded, eh? Oh, Jesus.
07:27Yeah, we've got a bit of a flat tyre. There's not much left of it. No, I'd say we just
07:31hit
07:31a good-sized rock pack there. Hopefully we don't get too many more because we've only got
07:35one spare. Well, Lasseter had his own problems. I suppose it's only fair we have a few of ours, eh?
07:46Oh, you pillow. Here we come.
08:002,000 kilometres away, the team's fourth member, historian Tanya Evans, is continuing her own
08:09investigation into Lasseter. What we hope to achieve while we're here in Melbourne
08:15is get some sense of what kind of man he came to be, hoping to piece together the early bits
08:28of Lasseter's life, perhaps his boyhood. So we're trying to figure out a little bit more
08:35about his personality, his characteristics. Was 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. He was born in 1880 in Meredith in Victoria.
08:56Ah, here we have an article from the Colac Herald, which was published in Victoria from 1875
09:03up until the end 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. Crikey, this is an armed robbery.
09:45It's not just a robbery. 16 years old and he's involved in an armed robbery. Wow.
09:55F***ing bloody hell. Great tyres, these f***ers. Yeah.
10:00No, these are the best. It's not going to go any further.
10:03Ah, so the brand new tyre that we've just put on is just blown out and it's the second tyre
10:07in about within 60 kilometres.
10:10That's put us in a bit of a world of hurt. We've got no spares. We're in strife.
10:25It's not repairable right now. We haven't got any valves either. There's no valve in it or anything. It's all
10:30gone.
10:31Deep in the outback, 300 kilometres from help, Geoff, Brendan and Andrew have been caught unprepared.
10:40It was a bit of bad luck having two flat tyres within 50 kilometres of each other and only having
10:45one spare. It's a bit of a silly mistake.
10:49I reckon you leave it. Keep rolling. Good luck mate.
10:53We've got about 100 kilometres to go and 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 do a ewee and come back mate.
11:19Yeah, we're stuck. We've just blown the second tyre.
11:36With 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, we ain't. There's no way we're going backwards.
11:53I didn't come this far to stop here.
11:55Yeah.
11:56The team need a plan to fix the trailer filled with vital supplies.
12:02I've got a trailer with four tyres, five tyres sitting in HQ there.
12:06All right. If you have to.
12:08As long as we can get there billied to nine, if we can get there billied to nine, we can
12:11worry about the tyres in the morning.
12:13Yeah, we can stash a trailer, take the essentials we need.
12:15I'll take these rims off it so it can't be moved.
12:18Yeah.
12:19Just drop it on the ground so no one can borrow it.
12:21Yeah.
12:22I'll just get my gear and just shoot into town.
12:24Okay.
12:24I think we do that.
12:25I'll get the tyres from HQ.
12:26As I come back with the tyres, I'll put them on and then meet us back to do a billy
12:31with the trailer.
12:32Probably mid-morning.
12:33Perfect.
12:35It's almost no muck around, it's quarter to five.
12:37Yeah.
12:37Hopefully we can get there before it gets too dark.
12:40We'll put this table somewhere.
12:42Rex's plan will see him return to Alice Springs, collect replacement tyres, fix the trailer and then rejoin the team
12:52in Il Pili.
12:53A round trip of 1,000 kilometres and almost two days.
12:59Well, it's nobody's fault, other than Geoff's.
13:03It's always my fault.
13:04Geoff.
13:05It's on your side, both flat tyres mate, a brand new tyre.
13:09Can't blame anyone else.
13:11Yep.
13:12But there's actually a road that will take you right into that scrub in there.
13:14Oh, perfect.
13:15Perfect spot.
13:16Excellent.
13:17It's pretty good, Dan.
13:20Nice.
13:21Let's go, man.
13:21We'll get into it.
13:23Thanks, Rex.
13:26The 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, can lead to disaster.
13:41We've still got probably 70km till we get there.
13:44Yeah.
13:44We'll be just on dark before we really set up camp and get some food organised.
13:49We don't want to push it too hard or we'll get more blown tyres.
13:52Oh, yeah.
14:09We've made it.
14:10We've made it.
14:20It's been a long day, but I'm also excited because here we are at Hillbilly.
14:27To be honest, we might have been wanting to get here for about 40 odd years and we're
14:31finally 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.
15:05It was torrential, so I'd gone to sleep and then at about three in the morning, bang,
15:11water's coming in.
15:13You know, things got pretty wet, pretty sun saturated through here.
15:18It was a rough night.
15:23No one thinks it rains in the desert.
15:25Look, you know, here it is.
15:32No, it's Geoff, mate.
15:33I'm just ringing up to check off.
15:34For Geoff, the unexpected weather...
15:36Yep, righto.
15:37..is causing more setbacks.
15:40Tomorrow?
15:41Alright, thanks, mate.
15:43His planned flight, retracing Lasseter's aerial search for landmarks, has 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, he reckons.
16:06Before any searching can begin...
16:09We're following you, mate.
16:11No worries.
16:12..the team need to pay their respects to the Aboriginal land they're on.
16:18Yeah.
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.
16:27So you've got to keep to that protocol.
16:38Hello.
16:39Hello.
16:40Where are you visiting?
16:41Why are you going to pick up another one?
16:42Oh, I'm Geoff.
16:44Just to come to visit.
16:45I'm Andrew.
16:46Just coming here to visit.
16:49Hello, I'm Brendan.
16:50I'm just here to visit.
16:51Look.
16:52This is Ilpili Spring.
16:54For thousands of years, this has been a significant water source for the Pinterby people.
17:01If I could get the main fella over here, we might go over and say hello.
17:07Hey, how you going, brother?
17:09What up?
17:10Yeah, palya.
17:11What up?
17:11Yeah?
17:12I'm Geoff.
17:13I was waiting for you, mate.
17:15Yeah, this is the spring now.
17:16Yeah, this was an important place for my families, yeah.
17:21In the old days, this area sacred?
17:23Yeah, sacred place.
17:25Is this 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 to have a big ceremony out of.
17:39Oh, right, yeah.
17:40Yeah, because of this water, yeah.
17:42Yeah.
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 Yana's car.
18:04Yeah, we'll do that.
18:05Good idea.
18:06Raining in the desert.
18:11This is a beautiful country, Terrence.
18:13Yeah, it is.
18:15Yeah, it is.
18:15All this is aboriginal land, all the way towards Newspil.
18:18Yeah, yeah.
18:19Yeah.
18:19Not many people get permission to come here either, do they?
18:22No.
18:23So we're pretty privileged.
18:25When me and Brendan were ten years old, we learnt about Ipili.
18:30Now we're here.
18:31It's very exciting.
18:34Terrence 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, they 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.
18:55Yeah.
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.
19:23At 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
19:42airfield and Lasseter's expedition.
19:45It's hard to believe that this is the actual area where Lasseter took off in his plane to
19:51look for his reef.
19:52Yeah.
19:53You see Terrence, I'm going to do a flight and we're going to come here above Ibili.
19:58Yep.
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.
20:08You think we're at the end of the airstrip now?
20:10Yep.
20:11Want to jump out, Andrew?
20:14Have a look.
20:18This is old Darren?
20:20Yep.
20:20It looks like old.
20:22You've never seen this before?
20:24No.
20:25It's an unusual picket, isn't it, Sam?
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?
20:36Yeah.
20:36If the plane hit this, it'll tip over.
20:39Mm-hmm.
20:40Mm-hmm.
20:44Mm-hmm.
20:46It's unusual to have just one peg in the middle of a field where there's nothing at all and
20:50there's...
20:52I can't see another peg anywhere.
21:01I wonder if this is like a corner.
21:03Yeah, cross.
21:05Yeah.
21:06It is too.
21:07It's a cross.
21:08Yeah.
21:09Yeah, I know it's cross.
21:10It's that way.
21:11Yeah.
21:15Terence and I would just notice that this is quite a right angle here.
21:19So it's a cross.
21:21Oh, it'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.
21:42So if we cleaned all this grass up...
21:44You'd see it like a compass bearing.
21:46From the air.
21:46From the air.
21:48This is awesome.
21:51That's a cross.
21:52I can't believe it.
21:53This is a substantial marker.
21:58In remote outback Australia, on Pinterby country, the team have made an incredible find.
22:07That's it.
22:08It is north, south, west, east.
22:12Holy moly.
22:14A stone cross, accurately 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
22:30compasses.
22:31This is proof that the airfield's here.
22:34I reckon Terrence, look legit.
22:37Yeah, it would have been like that.
22:39And the lad would have looked down, seen the flag flying on your air rod and coming down.
22:43Yep, absolutely.
22:43And then he landed, and then he seen your ancestors.
22:47Yep.
22:47And they were quite shocked.
22:49Yeah, they were shocked all right.
22:50I've never 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.
23:01Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
23:03When I go up in the plane, we'll fly over this.
23:07If 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, mate.
23:21Good 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 a reef.
23:46I've never seen this one.
23:47I'm glad you put this up straight away.
23:48I'll do that straight away.
23:50Rax is back.
23:52He's back and he's got the trailer.
23:54There you go, Raxi.
23:56There you go, mate.
23:58You've been through some mud.
24:02A bit wet down the road.
24:03Is it?
24:04I borrowed all the tyres off my mate's trailer.
24:06I've got another three in the back.
24:08Oh, perfect.
24:08The way you're going through tyres, I thought you might need him to get home.
24:15Hello.
24:16Yeah, g'day, is that Geoff Harris?
24:18Yeah, mate, it is.
24:20Yeah, mate.
24:21So you've got a flight booked with us, haven't you?
24:23Yeah, mate.
24:24Yeah, nah, we've got it all cleared.
24:26The skies have cleared up and it's looking good now.
24:29All right, mate, hearing the flight's back on, I'm racked.
24:33I'm stoked.
24:33This is what I came out here for.
24:36We can finally get up into the air, have a look at Lasseter's landmarks, see if we can locate them,
24:41and hopefully locate the reef.
24:44Hey, fellas, the flight's back on.
24:46Awesome.
24:47Yeah, the weather's cleared up.
24:48Weather's cleared up.
24:48That's good.
24:52See you later, bro.
24:53Hey, boys.
24:58While Geoff heads for the skies, Andrew and Brendan return to the airstrip to find any proof that Lasseter was
25:07here.
25:09So, look, I'm really excited.
25:11We've found the X, the cross.
25:14It's a structural thing there to show us an airstrip, but it still doesn't really prove that this is what
25:20Lasseter used.
25:21And we've got to keep looking to find something else if we can.
25:24I mean, it'd be really nice to find some evidence that suggests, obviously, Lasseter was here because then we lock
25:29it all in.
25:34If they had pulled up somewhere here to work, they might have dislodged something moving around, dropped it on the
25:41ground.
25:43So, by circling out, radiating from that inner area, I'm hoping to nail something just down the edge.
25:50It's not easy because we're actually, we're really running out of daylight.
26:02I have a target.
26:04You've got a target.
26:05We're on the money.
26:06Really?
26:07I'm not sure whether it's iron or what it is, but...
26:10Well, it doesn't matter what it is.
26:12It doesn't matter.
26:14No, thanks, mate.
26:17All right, we've moved it.
26:18We're already spinning the top.
26:19What's that?
26:22Hey!
26:23Now that's an old tin.
26:24How old is that?
26:27This is a piece off a bully beef tin.
26:29Yeah, that's great.
26:31Bully beef, or tinned corned beef, was a staple food item on Lasseter's 1930 mission.
26:41Records show that the expedition carted 200 pounds, or 90 kilograms, of bully beef, which would have totalled 267 tins.
26:54It's that era.
26:56That's from these guys.
26:57Yeah.
26:58This is a good chance that it puts it in the realm of the period that Lasseter was here.
27:03Yeah.
27:04They've sat here and had lunch.
27:05Absolutely.
27:06It's right here.
27:06Yeah.
27:07The fact they'd here, we've just got a real quick scout here.
27:10Yeah.
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.
27:25We can have a look at this.
27:27It's right there.
27:28All right.
27:29We'll have a little scratch.
27:36It's still there.
27:36Still there.
27:43All right.
27:43All right.
27:43All right.
27:43All right.
27:55Look at this, man.
28:15Let's do it.
28:17day. It's awesome. I know little about these sort of things. Well it makes it a definite marker.
28:24This is like the holy grail of proving this up. I'm just blown away. What a find. With the location
28:32of the airstrip firmed up Jeff can now confidently trace Lasseter's flight path from exactly the
28:39right starting point. Initially when finding that signal we're thinking what's Lasseter buried here
28:44but to dig that up was just equally as exciting because you know this thing's been lost for years
28:50you know 100 years and now we've uncovered it so it's just incredible it's great. All the puzzle
28:57pieces line up and start to link and the more we can do that along the way the closer we
29:02are to
29:02hitting that prime target and that's that's what it's about. Well we're about to lose light mate.
29:07All right I know. Pulling away from it but we gotta go. I just wish I had night vision. Let's
29:14go.
29:18That was bloody great. Oh wasn't it amazing. To find that location right there is just like out of the
29:26box.
29:49So I've just come to Harts Buff waiting for the plane to land repeating Lasseter's flight from 1930 so
29:55I'm pretty excited right now. I mean I've waited what 40 odd years to do this and finally the time's
30:03come.
30:06So I think I can hear him coming now actually. After all the delays it'll be great to get up
30:13in the air.
30:25So you ready for this big flight? Yeah. No 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. Yeah I feel it. But if there's something I learned being Irish is you
31:06can't control the weather.
31:13Yeah so Jack. How long have you been in Australia for? I've been in Australia eight years.
31:19Northern Territory is a very different landscape. Requires you to be a bit more switched on.
31:25Yeah. This turbulence that we're getting it's uh because it's such a hot day it's it's heated the grunge
31:33so quickly that all that hot air free convection is moving upwards at a very fast rate. When they were
31:40doing Lasseter's flights like I said they crashed one plane. Oh well I'm not going to do that today. No.
31:49In the 94 years since Lasseter flew over here aviation has advanced but the country has changed little.
31:59Below it remains wild empty and vast.
32:06We are actually going into the middle of nowhere. Yeah we are definitely in the middle of nowhere. Oh yeah.
32:12Like now is the middle of nowhere but Il Pili is even more the middle of nowhere. Yeah.
32:17Have you ever heard of the never never? Why is it called the never never? Never never ends.
32:22Oh right. I like that one better than never never return. Yeah.
32:27Well don't decide but if you had to go down are you always looking for somewhere to live?
32:32Yeah. I think the name out here the nearest airstrip is uh 73 miles away. Yeah right.
32:38So we're not going to make it um there are no roads there are no paddocks. Yeah.
32:45At the end of the day we can only do do what we can.
32:50So Jeff um what is it that you actually are looking for in it Il Pili?
32:56We discovered a cross made of stones, that's the same airfield that Lasseter took off to
33:04fly in the direction we'll be going.
33:07Once we get closer to the dock, and what I'm searching for is three hills, there's also
33:12a lake, and about 35 miles away is another hill, it should have 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, here we are, Uppili.
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.
34:05According to his pilot, he spotted his landmarks one hour and ten minutes into the flight.
34:14Jeff's calculations put that in the vicinity of Docker River.
34:20Right, now we head straight for Docker River.
34:25Yep.
34:25On the border.
34:28Safe flight path that Lasseter took 94 years ago, it's pretty amazing.
34:41In Melbourne, Tanya is digging deeper into some disturbing news.
34:47Here we go, the 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
35:06of Messers-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 organised, 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.
35:34My 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
35:54be detained in the reformatory.
35:58We know he's a minor.
36:00We have been told that the sentence he was given was lenient.
36:05Um, you know, it could be six months, it could be 18 months, um, who knows?
36:10This is October the 9th, 1896.
36:13And he is supposed to have discovered the gold at the end of 1897.
36:20If he's in reform school in 1897, then his whole story about being in the outback discovering
36:29gold is not true.
36:33This 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, you don't really appreciate it until you get up into the air, eh?
36:56Jeff is now approaching his primary target zone.
37:00That's Docker River.
37:01Yep.
37:01But it's dried up.
37:03Yep.
37:04According to reports, it was somewhere below that Lasseter spotted his landmarks, which
37:11he claimed pointed the way to his billion dollar gold reef.
37:15So I'm on the three hills around here somewhere.
37:19Three hills?
37:20Yeah, I know.
37:21There's lots of them.
37:22I know.
37:24I've studied these mountains for years looking on Google Earth, but now that you're
37:29upping the air, it's like, ugh.
37:31Yeah, it's pretty difficult.
37:33They look different.
37:35Yet they look the same.
37:39But I'm not giving up.
37:40We're gonna swing back around.
37:42Yeah.
37:43And I'm looking for a lake ripwater in it.
38:03Yeah.
38:03That, that knob there.
38:06Right, right.
38:07We're actually going over the exact spot that he flew.
38:11Yeah, I want you to head over that way a bit more.
38:21Three hills.
38:25Come on, Lasseter, give me another flow.
38:32We've, we've found the lake.
38:35I think that's it, don't you?
38:36Just there in front of us.
38:38Yeah, that's it?
38:38Yeah.
38:39That's it, mate.
38:40That's the lake.
38:43I reckon those three hills will be out there.
38:46You're right?
38:46The lake, the lake is here, right?
38:48Yeah.
38:48Well, 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.
38:56Yeah.
38:57There's one, two and three.
38:59Yeah.
39:01One, two and three.
39:04And one of them's flat.
39:07The one that's 35 miles away is a hill.
39:10Oh, flat.
39:12Yeah.
39:13Right in front of us.
39:14Yeah.
39:14Yeah.
39:15Is that about 35 miles away?
39:19Uh, yeah.
39:20It's 35 miles away.
39:22Yeah.
39:22That definitely fits the three hills I can see in front of us, too.
39:25Like, here.
39:26That's one east one and this one.
39:29It definitely fits the bill.
39:32Well, if you're onto something here, mate.
39:34This is amazing.
39:36Alright, Jack.
39:37Could you line us up, mate?
39:38So 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 coffee.
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 a Starlink up, then.
40:28You can hold that.
40:30Yep, you'll take the aerial and I'll plug it in.
40:36Alright.
40:39I think it's connecting now.
40:42Hi, guys. How 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,
40:48having a bit of a look south of Ill Billy.
40:51Fill us in. What's the news?
40:52So what's the urgency with the call?
40:54You said it was an urgent that we contact you.
40:56Yeah, sorry.
40:57I was hoping to get all three of you together,
40:59but it's just...
41:00Look, I made a discovery in the archives down in Melbourne
41:03and...
41:04It was a bit of a shock, actually.
41:05I'm afraid I've discovered a glitch in Lassiter's story,
41:10in his chronology.
41:12Oh.
41:12We came across some newspaper articles
41:14that suggest he was not in the desert
41:18when he said he was in 1897.
41:20No.
41:20He was actually in reform school.
41:23What? You're sure?
41:25Really?
41:25And he was being convicted of burglary, would you believe it?
41:27Really? No way.
41:29So that really puts a real kind of chink
41:32in Lassiter's story, unfortunately.
41:34Yeah, that really mucks up the dates.
41:35He says he was out here then, doesn't it?
41:38So where does that leave us now?
41:40Yeah, we're back to square one.
41:42That's his first story of finding the reef.
41:45It's...
41:45And 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, look, I'm going to leave you guys to tell Jeff.
41:56And look, I'm going to go back to the archives
41:58and see if I can unearth any other evidence
42:01that might suggest otherwise.
42:03But for now, I just felt like I really needed to let you know that.
42:05Okay, I'll leave you to it, guys.
42:07I'm really sorry.
42:08Thanks a lot, Tanya.
42:09Bye.
42:09Take care.
42:10Bye-bye.
42:13Let'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.
42:39The timeline doesn't seem to be right with last night.
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, Brandon.
42:49Hey, don't stop in here.
42:50No, don't stop.
42:50Don't stop in here.
42:52I'm not swimming.
42:56Check this out.
42:57This is amazing.
42:59This is the place.
43:00This is Lassa's Cave.
43:03Have a look at this.
43:05I think that's a great find, mate.
43:06This is something Lassa would have carried.
43:09Jeff or Brandon, are you on channel?
43:12Like, they should have been back.
43:13Mm-hmm.
43:15Let's go do this.
43:41Let's go.
43:43Get out of here.
43:43You can see it.
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