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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.
03:10Well, I tell you what, that's an amazing piece of rock.
03:18Best friends Jeff Harris and Brendan Elliott, joined by geologist Andrew Bales,
03:25are following the trail of Lasseter's 1930 mission to rediscover his lost reef,
03:32taking them into one of the most 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.
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. It made it easier for me to try to put myself in Lasseter's footsteps,
04:30in his mindset too. What was he thinking?
04:34And sometimes I'd even say there, will you bloody help me mate, you know?
04:40There's a lot of clues, really. The 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.
04:56Well 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 camp at a place
05:13called Illbilly.
05:17Dry country like this, the water was key. Yeah, it was a key, key factor. Yep.
05:25Illbilly was the ideal base camp for Lasseter's 1930 expedition.
05:29It had a permanent water supply and a ready-made airstrip built by a surveying team just months before.
05:39From here, the plan was to go hunting for the reef. From the air.
05:46Lasseter took just one flight from Illbilly. That 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 sunbonnets.
06:06And a fourth hill which looks like a 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,
06:20Geoff is planning to follow the exact flight path that Lasseter took nearly 100 years ago.
06:27We find those hills, we find the gold.
06:30He plans to follow his footsteps all the way out to Illbilly.
06:34Then 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.
06:46Pretty rough.
06:48It's rough, eh?
06:49Yeah.
06:51That wheel looks dodgy, man. Look at it.
06:55Oh, oh yeah. The trailer doesn't look like it's going straight.
06:58No, you better pull it up and check it.
07:02The field is not right?
07:03Something's not right.
07:11Oh, look at that.
07:16That's unreal.
07:18It's amazing.
07:21Whoa!
07:23Oh, boy, she's shredded, eh?
07:25Oh, Jesus.
07:27We've got a bit of a flat tyre.
07:29Not much left of it.
07:30No, I'd say we just hit 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, hillbilla. Here we come.
08:00Two thousand kilometres away, the team's fourth member, historian Tanya Evans,
08:07is continuing her own investigation into Lasseter.
08:11What we hope to achieve while we're here in Melbourne
08:15is get some sense of what kind of man he came to be,
08:22hoping to piece together the early bits of Lasseter's life,
08:30perhaps his boyhood.
08:32So we're trying to figure out a little bit more about his personality,
08:36his characteristics.
08:38Was he poor?
08:40Did 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.
08:56Ah, here we have an article from the Colac Herald,
09:00which was published in Victoria from 1875 up 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.
09:29So here we have Lasseter calling himself Lewis,
09:33but we know in 1924 he changed his name to Harold.
09:38Oh my goodness me, loaded revolvers when they were looting the premises.
09:43Crikey, this is an armed robbery, it's not just a robbery.
09:4716 years old and he's involved in an armed robbery.
09:52Wow.
09:55F*** bloody hell.
09:57Great tyres, these f***ers.
09:59Yeah.
10:00Oh, 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 world of hurt.
10:13We've got no spares.
10:14We'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 real good timing considering it's late now 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.
11:20We've just blown the second tyre.
11:36With daylight fading, finally Leo, with support driver Rex Spencer, comes to the rescue.
11:45Got a bit of strife here, Leo.
11:47I think we're better off backing up and going back home.
11:50No, we ain't.
11:51There'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.
12:07If you have to.
12:08As long as we can get to our billy tonight, if we can get to our billy tonight, we can
12:11worry about the tyres in the morning.
12:13Yeah, we can stash the trailer, take the essentials we need.
12:16I'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 the billy with
12:31the trailer.
12:32Probably mid-morning.
12:33Perfect.
12:35It's not muck around, it's quarter to five.
12:37Yeah.
12:37Hopefully we can get there before it gets too dark.
12:40We need to 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 ill-pilling.
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.
13:35Dirt roads, combined with large animals on the move, can lead to disaster.
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 and 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, 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 and 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, you 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.
15:26Look, you know, here it is.
15:32No, it's Jeff, mate.
15:33I'm just ringing up to check out.
15:34For Jeff, the unexpected weather is causing more setbacks.
15:40Tomorrow?
15:41Alright, thanks, mate.
15:42His planned flight, retracing Lassiter'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.
15:55Though, um, I'll be here for a bit longer before, you know, I head off, so.
16:00Okay.
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.
16:12The team need to pay their respects to 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.
16:28So 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 Jeff.
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 Pinterbee people.
17:01If I look at the main fella over here, we might go over and say hello.
17:07Hey, how you going, brother?
17:09What up?
17:10Yeah, how are you?
17:11What up?
17:11Yeah, yeah.
17:11Um, I was waiting for your mop.
17:15Yeah, this is the spring now.
17:16This was an important place for my, um, families.
17:21People to be here.
17:21Yeah.
17:21In their old days, this area sacred?
17:23Yeah, 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 to have a big ceremony out of.
17:39Oh, right, yeah.
17:40Yeah, because of this water here.
17:42Yeah.
17:42Did you know the story of Lasseter?
17:45Um, 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.
18:11It's a beautiful country, Terence.
18:13Yeah, it is.
18:15All this is Aboriginal land, all the way to Wissness.
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 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, they told me the plane saw the smokes and they landed around here.
18:50Oh, okay.
18:52It would have been like a giant bird.
18:54Yeah.
18:55And they were really scared of 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
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 Terence, I'm going to do a flight and we're going to come here above Ipili.
19:58Yep.
19:58And then we're going to fly south the 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?
20:10Yep.
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, Sven?
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?
20:34For the plane?
20:36Yeah.
20:36If the plane hit this, it'll tip over.
20:39Yeah.
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...
20:51I can't see another peg anywhere.
21:01I wonder if this is like a corner.
21:03Yeah.
21:04Cross.
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.
21:26Wow.
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.
21:45From the air.
21:46From the air.
21:48This is awesome.
21:50That's a cross.
21:52I can't believe it.
21:53This is...
21:54This is a substantial marker.
21:58In remote outback Australia, on Pinterpee 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.
22:44And then he seen your ancestors.
22:47Yep.
22:47And they were quite shocked.
22:49Yeah, 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, something like that.
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.
23:20Good 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.
23:38There's a chanel.
23:46I'll tell you what.
23:47She's unhaugly put this up right away.
23:48Yeah, it's great.
23:49That's right away.
23:50Rax is back.
23:52He's back.
23:53And he's got the trailer.
23:55Yo, Raxy.
23:58You've been through some mud.
24:02Bit wet down the road.
24:03Is it?
24:04Borrowed all the tyres off my mate's trailer, so I've got another three in the back.
24:08Oh, perfect.
24:09The 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. So 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 sky's cleared up and it's looking good now.
24:29All right, mate, hearing the flight's back on, I'm racked.
24:32I'm stoked. This is what I came out here for.
24:36I'm finally getting up into the air, have a look at Lasseter's landmark,
24:40see if we can locate them, and hopefully locate the reef.
24:44Hey, fellas, flight's back on.
24:46Awesome.
24:47Yeah, the weather's cleared up.
24:48It's good.
24:52See you later, bro.
24:53Yeah, 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,
25:17but it still doesn't really prove that this is what Lasseter 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,
25:28because then we lock it all in.
25:34If they had pulled up somewhere here to work,
25:37they might have dislodged something moving around, dropped it on the ground.
25:43So, by circling out, radiating from that inner area,
25:47I'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.
25:53It's all right.
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.
26:12If it's something...
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?
26:21Hey!
26:21Now that's an old tin.
26:24How old is that?
26:26This 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,
26:49which would have totalled 267 tins.
26:55It'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.
27:02Yeah.
27:04They've sat here in their lives.
27:05Absolutely.
27:06It's right here.
27:06Yeah.
27:07The fact they're 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.
27:29A little scratch.
27:36Still there.
27:36Still there.
27:37Still there.
27:41What is that?
27:42Well.
27:42It's off a post.
27:46Oh, man.
27:49That looks like brass.
27:52The markings on it.
27:54That's a brass marker pin.
27:55That's a surveying point.
27:57It's a surveying point.
27:58Man.
27:59Oh, look at that.
27:59This is being surveyed.
28:02N-T-L?
28:04N-T-L-1-6-2.
28:051-6-2.
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 extra for a specific reason and registered it, it'll give us a specific
28:17date.
28:18It's awesome.
28:19I know little about these sort of things.
28:21Well, it makes it a definite marker.
28:24This is like the holy grail of proving this up.
28:27I'm just blown away.
28:28What a find.
28:30With the location of the airstrip firmed up, Geoff can now confidently trace Lasseter's
28:37flight 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, this thing's been lost for
28:50years, you know, 100 years, and now we've uncovered it.
28:53So, it's just incredible.
28:55It'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.
29:03Excellent.
29:04And that's what it's about.
29:05Well, we're about to lose the light, mate.
29:07All right.
29:07I know.
29:08We'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.
29:18Wasn't it 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.
29:49So, I've just come to Hart's Buff, waiting for the plane to land, repeating Lasseter's
29:53flight from 1930.
29:55So, I'm pretty excited right now.
29:56I mean, I've waited, what, 40 odd years to do this, and finally the time's come.
30:06So, I think I can hear him coming now, actually.
30:10After all the delays, it'll be great to get up in the air.
30:25So, you ready for this big flight?
30:27Yeah.
30:28No worries, mate.
30:30To faithfully retrace Lasseter's flight, Geoff and Jack will first fly back to Il Pili, passing
30:37directly 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?
31:17I'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
31:33so quickly that 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.
31:55But 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.
32:10We 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.
32:23I 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?
32:33Out 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.
33:53That's beautiful.
33:54That 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 ten minutes into the flight.
34:14Geoff's calculations put that in the vicinity of Docker River.
34:20Right.
34:21Now we head straight for Docker River.
34:25Yep.
34:25On the border.
34:28Safe 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.
34:50In 1896, at the age of 16, Lasseter is accused of a serious crime.
34:58Henry Boreham and Louis Lasseter were charged with burglariously entering the establishment
35:06of Messrs Bellier in Fulton on the 30th of August.
35:10The 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.
35:24And 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.
35:48The judge was inclined to deal leniently with the accused and ordered that Lasseter should
35:54be detained in the reformatory.
35:57We know he's a minor.
36:00We have been told that the sentence he was given was lenient.
36:05You know, it could be six months, it could be 18 months.
36:08Who knows?
36:09This is October the 9th, 1896.
36:14And he is supposed to have discovered the gold at the end of 1897.
36:21If he's in reform school in 1897,
36:25then his whole story about being in the outback discovering gold is not true.
36:33This 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?
36:55Geoff is now approaching his primary target zone.
37:00That's Docker River.
37:01Yeah.
37:01But it's dried up.
37:03Yeah.
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.
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,
37:28but now that you're upping the air, it's like...
37:31Yeah, it's pretty difficult.
37:33They look different.
37:35Yet they look the same.
37:39Well, I'm not giving up.
37:40We're gonna swing back around.
37:42Yeah.
37:43And I'm looking for a lake reporter in it.
38:03That...
38:03That knob there...
38:06Oh, I'm 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 flu.
38:32We've...
38:33We've found the lake.
38:35I think that's it, Dave.
38:36Just there in front of us.
38:38Yeah, that's it?
38:38Yeah.
38:39Yeah, that's it, mate.
38:40That's the lake.
38:43I reckon those three hills will be out there.
38:45The lake...
38:46The lake's here, right?
38:47Yeah.
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.
38:57There'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, which is not cut off.
39:11Oh, flat.
39:12Yeah.
39:13Right in front of us.
39:14Yeah.
39:15Is that about 35 miles away?
39:19Uh, yeah, it'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.
39:35This is amazing.
39:37Alright, Jack, could you line us up, mate, so I can get a part of these hills here?
39:40Yeah.
39:47Beautiful.
39:49We've got it.
39:51There it is.
39:55We've got a lot of photos.
39:57When you're ready to turn, you go for it.
40:09Oh, I needed that coffee.
40:11Yeah.
40:12These guys are missing you.
40:17Oh.
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.
40:29There's two.
40:30Yep, you're going to take the aerial and I'll plug it in.
40:36Alright.
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 contact you.
40:56Yeah.
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.
41:03And it was a bit of a shock, actually.
41:05I'm afraid I've discovered a glitch in Lassiter's story in his chronology.
41:12Oh.
41:12No.
41:13We came across some newspaper articles that suggest he was not in the desert when he said
41:18he was in 1897.
41:20No.
41:20He was actually in reform school.
41:23What?
41:23You're sure?
41:24Really?
41:25And he was being convicted of burglary, would you believe it?
41:27Really?
41:28No way.
41:29No way.
41:29So that really puts a real kind of chink in Lassiter's story, unfortunately.
41:34Yeah, that really mucks up the dates that he 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.
41:41If that's his first story of fond in the reef, and he wasn't actually there, well 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
41:58archives and 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, 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.
42:11Bye 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.
42:18Yep.
42:18So Tanya's saying in 1897, when he was meant to be discovering the reef, or had discovered
42:24the 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.
42:40Timeline 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.
42:47Well, hold on now, Brendan.
42:49Don't stop in here.
42:50No, don't stop.
42:50Don't stop in here.
42:51No, I'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 Brendan, are you on channel?
43:12Like, they should have been back.
43:25Bye.
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