To add to that parts of many parts of 'the bush' require a ridiculous amount of effort to get through.
Little story, I've heard of a little town in NSW that has an unexplored collapsed gold mine from the late 1800's. The location is roughly known, somewhere in an area approx. 20km2 on some old Australians property.
Few people know about it, everyone who does at some point has talked about going to find it, the landowner doesn't mind if they try.. Yet in all these years, no one has attempted it, because even if the land was flat(which it's not) it's impossible to get through without a bulldozer.
Makes you wonder how the old settlers did it and what did they find in there that made it worth going to that effort.
In Australia mineral resources belong to the Crown, the government can issue licenses to survey and/or mine, and in most cases the landholder can’t veto this process. However I believe that the landholder is entitled to a lease payment. See for example https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-04-03/mining-rights/5...
Ah, well in that case not only do prospective searchers not have an incentive to look for the mine but the landowner doesn't have as much incentive either.
Makes you wonder how the old settlers did it and what did they find in there that made it worth going to that effort.