A former model who ditched city life to hunt for gold is lifting the lid on one of Australia’s oldest and most secretive industries, dead bodies in the outback and all.
Young goldminer Tyler Mahoney, 27, is touted as the modern face of prospecting after hunting for the precious metal for most of her life.
Her biggest find to date is a five-ounce nugget — about the weight of an apple, and worth about $13,000.
After decades in the desert, Ms Mahoney is shining a light on what she says is the “dark underbelly” of the gold industry, complete with stories of gold fever, sexism and dead bodies in the outback.
“Gold fever is definitely a real thing. It’s addictive, like a big rush of dopamine, and when people get the fever, they do crazy things,” she told news.com.au.
“Growing up, I witnessed gold heists and stealing, friends finding dead bodies in the desert.
“Once, a rookie prospector was in the middle of WA and found a vial of flakes in a place not known for gold. He took it to my parents’ gold dealership and they urged him to go back because it was such a strange find.
“He did, and after a look around, he found a dead body hidden inside a cave. He was pretty shaken, he didn’t tell us any more details than that.”
Ms Mahoney, who is also the star of the hit Discovery Channel show Gold Rush, has recently written a book, Gold Digger: Chasing the Motherlode in a Man’s World.
The memoir traces her family’s four generations of gold prospecting, her childhood spent fossicking in the red sandaongside her brother Reece, a brief foray to the big city and her eventual return home.
First is her great-grandfather Ned, a prolific prospector who has a large patch of productive ground he discovered named after him on the Murchison goldfields in WA.
“Next is my beautiful grandmother Nola,” Ms Mahoney said.
“She had serious gold fever. There weren’t many women prospecting in her time, so I owe a lot of what I’ve been able to do to her.”
Ms Mahoney was born in Kalgoorlie, 600km inland of Perth, and grew up alongside a gang of station kids.
“It was a pretty unique childhood,” she said.
“We spent all our school holidays, long weekends and afternoons out on stations prospecting and running amok. Our cousins would come out, and we would do our own thing while our parents hunted for gold. We got up to a lot of mischief and I loved it.”
At 19, she left the desert to pursue a career in modelling and jewellery design in Melbourne, but it wasn’t long before the goldfields called her home.
“Coming from a small country town, I didn’t realise how much I would miss the sense of community you get in the outback,” she said.
“I missed the gold and the red, and I realised it was what made me happy.”
Life as a prospector, Ms Mahoney says, is fairly unpredictable. In fact, she credits it with keeping her diagnosed bipolar disorder in check.
“My bipolar mind tends to chase dopamine hits and chaos,” she explained.
“Gold prospecting is so unknown, with no schedules, no secure pay, big finds and big rushes. I get restless and I start seeking adventure, and prospecting helps to keep me sane.”
On a typical day, the family records their finds in grams, with gold currently valued at about $85/g. On good days, they record it in ounces — about $2600.
“Every day is different. Sometimes it’s baked beans and sometimes it’s lobster,” Ms Mahoney said.
“I don’t get sick pay, I don’t get paid on days off, I don’t even get a salary. I literally get paid in the gold that I find.”
She says gold mining is still a “man’s world”.
“When I walk into a room as a prospector, it isn’t assumed that I know what I’m doing. I constantly have to prove myself,” she explained.
“Being fourth generation has helped, but when I’ve stepped away from the family, it becomes really obvious. I worked for a while in my parents’ gold dealership in Calgary, selling and buying gold from prospectors. Once, I was serving a customer and he dumped a load of fool’s gold on the table.
“I told him it wasn’t worth anything, it’s not real gold, and he said he wanted to speak to the boss. I went to grab my mum, and he said, ‘I don’t want to speak to her, I want to speak to a man.’
“My dad heard what was going on, and said I could tell him to f**k off — so I did.”
