It’s been more than two months since four-year-old August ‘Gus’ Lamont vanished from his family’s remote property in the South Australian outback with police still no closer to finding him.
The most recent search happened last week when police realised there were six mine shafts surrounding the property they previously had no idea existed.
The discovery of the shafts was the result of recent aerial mapping and ground searches — mines that had previously been undocumented and were only able to be located by advanced technology such as a a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).
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LiDAR, a remote-sensing technology that uses laser light pulses to measure distances and create highly detailed 3D maps of environments, helps give search crews accurate details on the long-forgotten mines.
And the recent discovery of the old mine shafts has also cast a spotlight on the region’s gold rush history.
Yunta and the outback that surrounds it was once dotted with small, short‑lived gold mining operations, many dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
When gold prospectors moved on, countless shafts were left undocumented and unsealed, gradually fading from maps but not from the landscape.
Today, these forgotten remnants of South Australia’s mining history pose hidden dangers — deep, unfenced holes scattered across remote scrubland — complicating search efforts and underscoring the risks faced by both locals and investigators.
Yunta was a transport hub for mining townships during the gold rush, with abandoned mines and unmarked digs littering the landscape. Credit: SAPOL/Stephen Langman Relics of South Australian pioneering history The shafts searched during the investigation are relics of South Australia’s gold rush era, when prospectors carved deep into the earth in search of fortune, often leaving behind undocumented shafts.
In 1886, more than 5,000 miners rushed to the Teetulpa goldfield, northeast of Yunta, producing 3,132kg of gold in just three years.
Shafts were dug hastily with many abandoned when the rush subsided.
South Australia’s abandoned mines have claimed a number lives over the years with both locals and visitors involved in fatal incidents over the years.
In 2006, a 55-year-old from Pooraka died after falling into a mine shaft in Coober Pedy, and in the same year, a body of a local 45-year-old woman had to be recovered from a mine shaft in the notorious Dead Man’s Gully opal field.
And in 2024, a man narrowly escaped with his life after falling down a 30m opal mine shaft also near the opal grounds at Coober Pedy.
Teetulpa near Yunta was a big prospecting area during Australia’s gold rush era. Credit: State Library of South Australia Ghost towns and forgotten records At Waukaringa, just north of Yunta, gold was worked from 1873 to 1969, with 1,427kg extracted from ore.
Yunta itself was founded in 1887 as miners streamed through on their way to Teetulpa and Waukaringa, later becoming a railway hub linking Adelaide to Broken Hill.
Outback truck driver Harry Ding later made Yunta famous as a mail carrier from 1934, symbolising the town’s shift from mining to transport.
Miners at Teetulpa often faced shortages of water and firewood, resorting to “dry blowing” techniques to extract gold from dust.
But when the gold discoveries dried up, so too did the towns.
In the region, mine shafts had already been dug as deep as 260m. Alongside the shafts little remains — just towering stone chimneys and ruins of hotels, shops, and schools.
The ruins of Waukaringa’s main street stand as ghostly reminders of the boom, once home to a bustling hotel, post office, and school.
The last owner of the hotel was Aboriginal boss drover Billy McKenzie, who paid for it in cash from his saddle bags and continued the hotel for another year before the droving work dried up and only a handful of residents remained in Waukaringa, selling it to another man, who stripped the hotel of metal and wood to sell.
Police earlier confirmed they were not aware of the six shafts now being searched — a stark reminder of how incomplete records from the gold rush era.
Harry Ding and his transport company were important to the Mid North residents. Credit: State Library of South Australia Yunta even had a racecourse when the miners visited the region in their thousands. Credit: State Library of South Australia. Heartbreak for the Yunta community The latest search for Gus has provided nothing with the mine shafts offering no further clues in the disappearance of the little boy.
For Yunta’s small community, Gus’s disappearance has been heartbreaking.
Family friend Bill Harbison said Gus’s family remained devastated.
“We miss him more than words can express,” he told 7NEWS.
For the Lamont family and the Yunta community, hope remains that answers will be found.
Authorities stress there is no evidence of foul play, but have not ruled it out.
Despite draining a dam containing 3.2 million litres of water, combing 470 square kilometres of rugged terrain, and battling scorching heat, search crews have found only a single footprint about 500m from the homestead.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens acknowledged the difficulty of the search, saying there are “lots of places a small child might find themselves which are hard to identify.”
Gus was last seen on September 27 playing outside the homestead while his grandmother cared for his younger brother inside.
His mother and other grandparent were tending sheep on the family’s 6000-hectare property, 43km south of Yunta.
Divers have found no trace of August Lamont in one of the property’s dams. Credit: 7NEWS The landscape of Oak Park station is harsh, full of scrub and limited water. Credit: SAPOL
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