For those in the UK I think it is available for streaming at http://www.channel5.com/shows/monty-hal ... isers-gold
In search of the real story behind one of the world’s greatest underwater mysteries, explorer and marine biologist Monty Halls takes a team of expert divers to Namibia in southwest Africa to explore a deadly sinkhole lake in the desert. They are looking for a safe reputed to contain £60 million worth of gold, dumped by the retreating German army during World War I.
In 1915, rather than see their guns and heavy artillery fall into South African hands, the Germans threw them from the steep cliffs of Lake Otjikoto into the murky green waters below. Legend has it that they also threw in a safe containing six million gold marks, worth approximately £60 million today. Many divers have attempted to locate the safe, but Otjikoto’s depth and darkness have confounded them all.
Monty and his team are equipped with the latest equipment and technology to enable them to dive longer and deeper than anyone there in the past. Using sonar and computer-mapping systems, they will also be able to create the first detailed 3D map of the lake bed.
Otjikoto’s tranquil surface waters are deceptive, as Monty and the team quickly find out. They are soon in pitch darkness, while the steep slopes lead the unwary down into amaze of tunnels and caves. Other hazards include the possibility of disturbing live anti-personnel shells. Should anything go wrong, they are hundreds of miles from help.
To understand what the Germans were doing in Namibia, Monty talks to military historian Gordon McGregor, checks out Tsumeb museum and visits key locations including the formerly prosperous town of Swakopmund. Archive film and photographs help to illustrate the story as he pieces together the events leading up to and after the surrender.
To prepare for the dive, Monty chats to Theo Schoemann, who found German weapons on a ledge 60 metres down in the lake 15 years ago. He tells Monty that in places the mud on the lake bed is up to three metres thick and that anything heavy will eventually sink in. Monty decides to begin by exploring the ledge. The team finds huge cannons and unexploded bombs, but no safe.
Just as he begins to wonder whether the gold was a myth, Monty meets Ilse Schatz, founder of the Tsumeb museum,who tells him a story that seems to prove the existence of the safe. Buoyed by this information and with a new 3D map narrowing the search down to just one likely place in the lake, the team prepares for a final, dangerous dive – 280ft down into a cave. But will they find the Kaiser's gold?
