Severe Foot-in-Mouth Disease on the First and Last Ever 'Eleven Parks to Parkes Mechanical Snowboard Tour' 2013
PART TWO
Meeting back up with the highway I resumed cruising at the speed-limit. Usually I'd speed a little bit. Sometimes a lot. But seeing as though I'm on a years good behaviour with only one bloody point left on my license I'm driving like a granny until then.
The next town and skatepark(s) on the journey to note is Katoomba, the central hub of the Blue Mountains. Katoomba has two parks, both of which can be crowded with one or two other skaters there. The mini bowl resembles the Shaky Bowl in Surry Hills, if not slightly more fun with a little roll-in and some funky shit to skate scattered around it. The main park seems like it's been squashed into its existing setting, which I kind of like. I think park designers should be faced with certain constraints in which they need to provide a solid park in. How often do we, as skaters, see a certain area of land that would be perfect for a skatepark, or at least some sort of obstacle? Most of the time we are just indulging in a bit of wishful thinking.
Councils should listen to the young members of their communities and utilise the amount of wasted space they have to create fun, interesting, interactive and enjoyable environments for their citizens. Katoomba skatepark, although including a long bank and a couple of hips that look really fun, leaves little to be desired. It really does look like the council have allocated this tiny little spot of nothing for us to create a skating environment, and that being said, whoever designed it has done a good job for the space provided. To me it just seems so cramped, literally like it has been squashed in to fit inside the allotted space.
So I didn't skate in Katoomba either. I just drove by both parks, enjoying myself as I watched hundreds of Katoomba locals, again, most on fucking scooters and BMXs, try to thread the needle around each other in an effort to make the most of their tiny, local parks. With three parks down and yet to stand on my board, I decided that no matter what I'd have at least a quick session in Blackheath, only five minutes up the road.
Blackheath may not be the newest park in the mountains, but I enjoy its simplicity. I knew it'd be my final chance to skate before getting over the mountains and down to Lithgow, so I was pretty stoked to pull up next to the park and see only a few young skaters having a dig. With no bikes or scooters in site I grabbed my board and walked over with all the kids looking over at me in excitement. When your in your mid-twenties and you rock up to a park with a skateboard under your wing you can often cause some kind of excitement in the young groms. They usually assume you rip. I don't really mind or care because no matter the level of my ability, I still get plenty of respect and room to skate, and I could care less about what these little froth-bags think. I always find it slightly hilarious
when the looks of disappointment wash over their faces as they realise that I'm not going to blow their fucking minds. Sometimes I enjoy skating even shitter than normal, just to piss them off in an effort to hog the park and to get them to leave. At least they were happy to stay the fuck out of my way – watching intently with every trick I tried. Some even bashed their trucks on the coping for me, but I just took that as them sucking up to me a bit, because I wasn't landing anything. Some of these kids skated better than me for fucks sake! At least they were cooler than those little pussies from Lawson.
I had a short, fun skate at Blackheath and got back on the road. Lithgow was my next destination, and apart from not being the nicest town in the world (although, it still fits into the nicer category of country towns) also boasts two skateparks. One of them is not even worth thinking about and only just barely worth writing about. I'll give it one sentence. It's a small, steel pre-fab that'd be crowded
with one bike on it, let alone 20. The other park is big and well-made, but pretty much a BMX park with a spine and a solid bowl that not many of the two-foot high skaters bother trying to ride. Apart from the inviting transition, Lithgow neglected to offer what I was after, so my decision to head off wasn't hard.
About thirty k's out of Bathurst I noticed a truck in the distance with similar insignia to my own. 'It couldn't be the other 'Planet' truck, could it?', I thought, but as I got a bit closer I soon came to recognise the logo and was finally convinced that I'd somehow caught up to the other boys heading out to a job in Griffith. I'd said no to the Griffith job, before I was offered the Parkes gig because one of the crew, Dom, has got to be the wingiest pom in the history of wingey
poms, which is pretty much all of them! My justification was that I'd rather drive four and a half hours by myself to Parkes than go twice as far with Dom. I also knew that my mate Dimitri would be in the truck with Dom, and Dimi being a fellow stoner and always down for a good time, would be more than happy to see me fly past them, a blazing fatty hanging from my mouth. A pulled up next to them, going about 110km/hr.
I could see Dimi talking to Dom: “What the fuck is this dickhead doing next to me? He's blocking me!” I sat there beside them, slowing down as they did. Neither of them had bothered to look over and notice that it was me driving. It wasn't until I flew past them that they would've noticed me. It was impossible not to, my van being covered in 'Planet Entertainment' logos and whatnot. I could see them in the rear-view pissing themselves in the cabin, and Dimi was making the 'let's get stoned' motion with his hands and lips. I pulled up on the next shoulder, and stoned is exactly what we got.
Dimi and I passed a joint between ourselves, with Dom hovering between us like the Indian RA in How High sitting between Meth and Redman trying to get a hit: “That shit on yo' lip's got some shit on it's lip.” I gave him a drag or two, I'm not a complete cunt, but I got some satisfaction out of watching him whimper for it like a dog salivating over his masters dinner. Fortunately, some real-life dogs came out of nowhere and took his attention away from our joint. These dogs obviously lived on a property nearby, and were well aware of the dangers of wandering onto the highway, but Dom took it upon himself to be their guardians and to stop them from going anywhere near the road, even though they didn't want to – they were more interested in pissing on the truck. While Dom the pom was preoccupied with the dogs and their pee, we chatted about how uncanny our running into each other out here was, especially seeing as though they'd taken a bit of long-cut to go through Orange. Bathurst was the next stop, where I intended to skate, but we made a plan to meet up in Orange. They were a lot slower than me, but with my skating stopovers we assumed that we'd be able to be in Orange at about the same time.
I ended up getting to Bathurst, driving past the skatepark, which is inevitable the way I was heading, and seeing it chock-a-block full of skaters, scooters and bikes. Even with it's smooth, concrete bowl and numerous lines, there wasn't any point in me bothering to skate amongst the grom throng, so I didn't stop and went straight to Orange. Orange, like Bathurst, has a great park.
The only difference is Orange has less fuckwits to deal with, and happens to be a superior park. Built by Oasis Skateparks, Orange has to be one of the most fun and line-plentiful parks I've ever ridden. There is something for everyone. When I arrived, there was a scooter crew sessioning the centre fun-box section, looking like there were having a shitload of fun rolling in on the ramps - placing their fucking feet on the coping as they'd transfer over it (does that not shit you off immensely as well?) The great thing was, though, that they stuck to that section, which left the other side empty. It includes a similar set-up but including rails, and the two bowls and sectioned quarter to muck around on.
Orange isn't a tiny town, and has a population large enough to ruin this park, but the beautiful thing was that it seemed to work very well with the amount of people using it. There were at least 20 other people at Orange skatepark that day (it was a Saturday) but I didn't have any trouble trying to skate what I wanted. It really shows us how the design elements and planning involved with building a good skatepark in any urban, suburban or regional environment is key is making that park a place that will be enjoyed and enjoyable for many years after it's been built. Orange is a testament to this type of design - encompassing all aspects of what the park will be used for (skateboards, scooters and BMX) and enhancing the experience for each apparatus. The sesh I had at Orange skatepark while I waited for Dom and Dimi to catch up was a memorable one. There's a small street section (ledge and 6-stair rail) behind where the locals kids where, but the other section where I skated can be approached from either way and lends itself to extended runs without having to push, which is what I love about well flowing tranny the most. Some ledges, a couple of rails, a few nice banks and quarters at some interesting angles, and most importantly, an abundance of space equals a sick park in my opinion. I do wish I was able to skate at Orange again on my way home, but I ended up taking a bit of a detour.
After skating for about half an hour I called the boys in the truck. Apparently, they'd taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque, or more likely Bathurst, and were a few hours more south than they wished to be. I told them how bad I felt for them, while secretly chuckling maniacally on the inside, and skated for a bit longer before getting back on the road. Time was getting on so I headed straight for Parkes. The route goes through Manildra, a small town just after Orange which also has an interesting donut bowl with skate-able obstacles surrounding it. From what I'd seen on the net it looked extremely fun, but when I got to Manildra it'd gotten dark, and of course I'd forgotten to bring a map to every town's skatepark with me. If I had GPS it wouldn't be a worry, but with the piece of shit I've been using as a phone for the last few months, I was screwed. Even if I did find the park, I doubt it would've had lights.