When Harold Bell Lasseter died in the desert in 1931, he took the secrets of a supposed huge gold-bearing reef in Central Australia to his grave.
But his passing wasn’t the last chapter in this tale.
The yarn about Lasseter and his dreamt gold reef in the desert is a tale of hope, despair, and heartbreak.
It’s become an integral part of Aussie folklore and still inspires new gold-hunting missions to the remote heart of the country.
At its heart, it’s a yarn about a sunken treasure that’s always been just eluding us.
Adventure-seeker turns map upside down in decades-long quest
Vietnam vet Bill Decarli, 77, has spent the better part of four decades looking for Lasseter’s Reef.
While Lasseter reckoned the gold-bearing reef was out west of the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory, Mr Decarli had an epiphany that sent him off in a different direction.
“I saw a documentary about Lasseter’s Reef on telly by Mike Willesee, and that’s when I turned to the sheila and said, ‘I know where it is – it’s a reversal of bearings’,” he said.
And so, I got out the atlas.
In ninety-one, Mr Decarli turned his map over and set off into the Queensland outback, where he reckons he came across the important landmarks detailed by Lasseter.
He’s been back to the location a fair few times over the years.
He’s finally got a drill team in to do some mineral testing at the site, and is hoping to get to the bottom of it all.
G’day, I reckon people are remembered for what they’ve achieved, not how much cash they’ve made, and that’s the real deal, mate.
Colourful characters drawn in
A bunch of inquisitive people have since headed to the outback in search of the bonanza.
Former pawn shop proprietor Jason Faddoul first became aware of the elusive reef in 2018 while Mr Decarli was purchasing some pre-owned DVDs from his store in Melbourne.
“I’d always catch him spruiking to my staff about Lasseter’s Reef and how he claimed to have struck it rich, worth billions of dollars,” he said.
I asked him, ‘fair dinkum, what’s holding you back from heading back out?’ and he said, ‘shekels’, and I said, ‘how much dough will it set you back?’
He wasted no time explaining it to me.
I said to him, ‘I’m in, I’ll back you’.
Since then, Mr Faddoul has laid out over A$750,000 in his search for the incredibly valuable reef.
Geez, getting a helicopter to charter to a non-contrasting probably, getting rights to explore and getting a top bloke with experience in geology to join the crew, he found that catching the gold bug can be a ripper of an expensive and addictive bug.
A business-spirited bloke, Mr Faddoul conceded that the job had evolved into something more profound.
It came in as a Lasseter’s Reef situation – that’s how we got started with it, and now it’s escalated into substantial copper deposits.
I’ve strolled through one entrance and now there’s a few other options available.”
It’s bloomed into a much bigger deal, where we’ve got a second chance and it’s turned into a huge investigation all round, covering everything.
Mr Faddoul said he thought what would be discovered at the site would become a nice nest egg for everyone.
You’d reckon there’s probably something like that out there
Lasseter was a polarising figure, whose stories about his expeditions to the Red Centre were full of glaring contradictions.
While some have chosen to ignore the discrepancies, others have blown the whistle on ’em.
“At one time, I had over 100 books about Lasseter on my shelves,” said Alice Springs historian Barry Allwright.
After four decades of research, the retired land surveyor has put together a seven-part, 1,900-page book about it, which he’s just stored in the Northern Territory’s records department.
Fair dinkum, despite his dead set conviction that the reef doesn’t exist, Mr Allwright said he understood how the yarn had inspired a whole bunch of gold-keen prospectors and explorers right throughout the years.
“It’s probably done naturally, in a sense,” he said.
Mates, we’d love to think that’s how it works, and the majority of people haven’t done the homework to change their minds.
Unwell with cancer, Mr Decarli has been unable to make the trip to the site for this occasion.
Although he hasn’t cashed in on his win yet, the seasoned bloke has had a ripper of an experience.
“I wasn’t in it for the blokes,” he said.
The difference between me and other people who’ve gone out there is I did it to figure out what really went on.
