Jimmy_Eyebrow
Member
Here in (Southern) Tasmania, we all know where the best parks are; we know that EC is the big daddy and that Taroona is the hidden gem, but what of those parks outside the city?
How do you know which parks are worthy of a road trip just to experience them? Where are they and how do they all stack up against each other? Using a boxing expression, which parks are the best, pound for pound?
Inspired by Bruce Brown's timeless classic The Endless Summer, haloKid and The Pineapple hit the road on a five day, 1500km odyssey around Tasmania to review thirteen skateparks that may not be that well known outside their immediate area.
The first park of the trip also took the longest to get to. There are two ways to get to Scamander on the East Coast; via the East Coast Highway through Sorell or up the Midlands Highway, turning onto the Lake Leake Highway. We chose the latter option, which allowed us to take morning tea in Campbelltown, and it proved to be a wise choice as the Falls Festival traffic in and around Sorell was abominable and could have induced a nervous breakdown even before the trip had begun.
Early afternoon saw us arrive at a very clean and nicely defined park at Scamander with very few people in attendance.
On first view, the park looks stunning and is virtually devoid of graffiti. Speaking to a local there who appeared to know everything humanly possible about the park, he indicated that it was around $200,000 worth of park.
It is very nicely designed BUT with one significant flaw that almost saw the trip derailed on the very first drop-in. The slopes have been attached to the base of the park at a sharp angle instead of being smoothed out with a slight curvature. haloKid found this out on his first run when he almost came to a dead stop and barely prevented himself from hurdling the bars.
Our contact at the park told us that this issue had been identified and was slated to be rectified in the near future. However in the short term, imagine driving a car and hitting a speed-hump at around 50kmh; it hasn't totally wrecked your car but you know for sure it hasn't done it any good either. That's what it's like coming down the hills at Scamander.
Also, some of the areas are very narrow and give you little room for error if you have had to adjust your trajectory after the crash landing at the bottom the slope, as The Pineapple discovered on one of her runs.
Ultimately, the hard landing at the bottom of the slopes has a significant impact on the ability to transition into anything else because you lose so much speed in such a short time.
The park is worth a look and would (will) be much better if (when) the angles at the bottom the hills are smoothed. The biggest issue though is that this park is SO far out of your way, you have to make a long trip for an experience that is better than acceptable but still not something you'll rave about for a long time afterwards.
Day one had already been a long one, and from Scamander, it was on to the only other stop on day one: St. Helens.
Convenient to shops and right on the waterfront, the St. Helens park is well located but alas, that is about all it has going for it.
As we see, there isn't much on offer at the St. Helens park and, as seen in the following picture, even the most basic elements of this rudimentary park present design issues.
The box in the middle of the park offers the opportunity for some decent air but once launched, you have nowhere to go and it is like jumping into a void. As such, bailing out was the preferred option whenever the jump took on a life of its own.
The park offers some interesting aspects for bike riders who have included the surrounding terrain into their repertoire of tricks, but for scooters, there is little on offer.
The unfortunate thing about St. Helens being such a disappointment is that it gives even less reason for anyone to drive as far as Scamander. There are only two parks in this part of the state, and one of them is third rate. If both were great, it might make up for the fact St. Helens is overcrowded, overpriced and, for the supposed seafood capital of Tasmania, serves crap seafood. But unfortunately, St. Helens is a definite strike on the scorecard.
We rested up in St. Helens overnight and prepared for day two, which would takes us to Evandale, Perth, Launceston's Royal Park and then onto a real little diamond in the rough at Ravenswood.
How do you know which parks are worthy of a road trip just to experience them? Where are they and how do they all stack up against each other? Using a boxing expression, which parks are the best, pound for pound?
Inspired by Bruce Brown's timeless classic The Endless Summer, haloKid and The Pineapple hit the road on a five day, 1500km odyssey around Tasmania to review thirteen skateparks that may not be that well known outside their immediate area.
The first park of the trip also took the longest to get to. There are two ways to get to Scamander on the East Coast; via the East Coast Highway through Sorell or up the Midlands Highway, turning onto the Lake Leake Highway. We chose the latter option, which allowed us to take morning tea in Campbelltown, and it proved to be a wise choice as the Falls Festival traffic in and around Sorell was abominable and could have induced a nervous breakdown even before the trip had begun.
Early afternoon saw us arrive at a very clean and nicely defined park at Scamander with very few people in attendance.
On first view, the park looks stunning and is virtually devoid of graffiti. Speaking to a local there who appeared to know everything humanly possible about the park, he indicated that it was around $200,000 worth of park.
It is very nicely designed BUT with one significant flaw that almost saw the trip derailed on the very first drop-in. The slopes have been attached to the base of the park at a sharp angle instead of being smoothed out with a slight curvature. haloKid found this out on his first run when he almost came to a dead stop and barely prevented himself from hurdling the bars.
Our contact at the park told us that this issue had been identified and was slated to be rectified in the near future. However in the short term, imagine driving a car and hitting a speed-hump at around 50kmh; it hasn't totally wrecked your car but you know for sure it hasn't done it any good either. That's what it's like coming down the hills at Scamander.
Also, some of the areas are very narrow and give you little room for error if you have had to adjust your trajectory after the crash landing at the bottom the slope, as The Pineapple discovered on one of her runs.
Ultimately, the hard landing at the bottom of the slopes has a significant impact on the ability to transition into anything else because you lose so much speed in such a short time.
The park is worth a look and would (will) be much better if (when) the angles at the bottom the hills are smoothed. The biggest issue though is that this park is SO far out of your way, you have to make a long trip for an experience that is better than acceptable but still not something you'll rave about for a long time afterwards.
Day one had already been a long one, and from Scamander, it was on to the only other stop on day one: St. Helens.
Convenient to shops and right on the waterfront, the St. Helens park is well located but alas, that is about all it has going for it.
As we see, there isn't much on offer at the St. Helens park and, as seen in the following picture, even the most basic elements of this rudimentary park present design issues.
The box in the middle of the park offers the opportunity for some decent air but once launched, you have nowhere to go and it is like jumping into a void. As such, bailing out was the preferred option whenever the jump took on a life of its own.
The park offers some interesting aspects for bike riders who have included the surrounding terrain into their repertoire of tricks, but for scooters, there is little on offer.
The unfortunate thing about St. Helens being such a disappointment is that it gives even less reason for anyone to drive as far as Scamander. There are only two parks in this part of the state, and one of them is third rate. If both were great, it might make up for the fact St. Helens is overcrowded, overpriced and, for the supposed seafood capital of Tasmania, serves crap seafood. But unfortunately, St. Helens is a definite strike on the scorecard.
We rested up in St. Helens overnight and prepared for day two, which would takes us to Evandale, Perth, Launceston's Royal Park and then onto a real little diamond in the rough at Ravenswood.