Ben Lomond
Its 5:45pm, a time in the tassie newsroom where photographers are filing their pictures from a days work and journo’s are putting the final polish on their stories and for some still writing into the night.
But for reporter Chris Clarke and I we were just finding out about going up to Ben Lomond for the start of the snow season. I’d started at 9 and Chris well, he would have been there 30min before me to get a head start. With our shifts due to finish at 6.
But... The final phone call comes in letting us stay at Rover Ski Club overnight, Chris and I make the dash around the office collecting camera gear, phone chargers and laptops. We also steal the editor’s Subaru and Chris nervously sits beside me whilst I’m tasked to drive us up the mountain. Chris had also never seen snow (he was excited to say the least) and for me this was just another awesome experience working in Tassie.
We were told that we needed something for tomorrow’s paper. So deadline was in like in 3 and a half hours. With travel time of about an hour to get up the mountain via getting as much warm gear from home as possible.
We get up the mountain in once piece, a few swear words but we made it.. Its pitch black and there are a group of people unloading their car, we quickly convince them to be in a photo and setup a shot of them unloading their car with huge frosty smiles and bam, I’m done plus I still need to send off some pictures from earlier in the day.
We setup in the lodge and Chris begins to file his stories from the day plus cook, I’ve been tasked to the vegetables (smart really) and trying to stay quiet whilst we both finish our work and eat. Final calls are made to the night news editor to check the content and we are done. By this time the group have almost left and headed to bed. We stick around and chat till around midnight.
Oh thats right, we agreed we’d get up around 5am for the sunrise.
Thermals on and we head outside waiting for the sun to light up the snow covered mountain. Gloves would have been handy and proper snow gear. But its perfect otherwise. We got a stack of pics and returned inside for breakfast, also safely prepared by Master Chef Chris. Before adventuring outside to meet the locals and families that had came up for the day.
By mid afternoon we were filing and needing to get down the mountain before dark. We arrived back in Launceston fairly late. I dont know about Chris but I headed to bed around 10 exhausted, but no sleep in, back on deck at 9am sharp to do it all over again.
