When a geologist looking for gold in North Queensland hires a new exploration crew, the stage is set for some unusual events. There is Jim, an out of work Kiwi butcher who has never been in the bush before; Art, an overweight lay-about and boaster who turns out to be worse than useless, and Chas, a saint who has enough equipment to run a BHP exploration camp, except its use-by date is long gone. It is a team that would test the patience of a saint. Fortunately one is present. Interspersed with some sharp card gambling practices there is a rotten egg episode, a tangle with a razorback boar, hallucinogenic mushrooms, floods, the '87 stock market collapse, a helicopter crash, some unusual affairs of the heart and many other episodes; (they even find some gold). In this tongue-in-cheek account by veteran geologist Robert Pyper, he describes the trials of a field exploration geologist over an 18-month period. It is a book designed to gladden the heart and keep you chuckling page by page.