Community fundraising efforts have allowed digging at a disused gold mine at Avoca to resume with the missing boy’s brother, Daryl Floyd, concentrating on the site’s main shaft adjacent to the original shaft which he begun excavating in 2010.

Mr Floyd said a tunnel in the original shaft could not be accessed and it was thought by accessing the main shaft they could meet up with the underground drive he believes Terry’s body had washed into.

“We’re not looking for his body in this shaft,” he said.

“There is only dirt in this shaft … but hopefully once we get in this drive we find cow skulls.”

He said the cow skulls were dumped in the mine by a local abattoir owner up until 1979, four years after the disappearance of Terry.

Mr Floyd believes if they find the skulls they will be close to discovering what was in the mine in 1975.

“At the end of the day I don’t want to find my brother’s body… but it only stops when we find him. If it takes 20 years, so be it,” he said.

Since 2010 more than $150,000, of which $100,000 has been of Mr Floyd’s own money, has been spent looking for any clues Terry’s remains are in the Morning Star Mine.

Mr Floyd said the next dig would likely exceed those costs with the main shaft almost three times the size of the adjacent shaft.

But he said fundraising by the community over the last four weeks has meant the search could continue.

“We’ve got to where we are because of the local community spirit,” he said.

“Once upon a time it was my own journey, others are involved now … it’s a community quest.

“The support is overwhelming.”

Earlier this year a necklace, similar to a silver chain Daryl and his brother bought from a local Maryborough jeweller in the 1970s, was discovered in the mine.

“What’s a necklace doing that far down a mine shaft? I know in my heart it’s Terry’s,” he said.

“Now we’re more than determined.”