Ancient Haunts

Reading another thread got me thinking about posting stories of skate spots long since gone but fresh in the memory.

Harris Park (Sydney) had a brick bowl thing that was designed as a fountain. Thing had a bloody great gum tree off to one side stopping it being perfect (for what it was…). One Danny Van got his skate legs there and we used to regularly hang out in it. It was in a park between unit buildings. Train there, hot chips and coke for lunch circa - 1980.

Went and had look a few months back. Sat and had lunch whilst kids played cricket on the spot where it once was - ahh the memories :wink: :unamused:

Remember it so well Steve. One of the iconic Sydney 70’s bank hot-spots. Me & my little bro’ Russell occasionally PT’d it all the way from Pymble to session there as an alternative to Greenwich Boat Ramp, around 76 & into 77. There was a full crew of 70’s locals there every weekend in those days - Dog, Trog, Roy & others whom I can’t recall. They’d park their cars in the flats next to the bowl, crank stereos up, cases of beer etc - an early wild crew. Rad skaters with unique styles. They also used to create lean-to type extensions out of the bowl (3-5 foot high, coming off the tranny - mad shit !) Wonder what ever happened to those guys? Was also the first place I ever saw Dave Mock skate - smooth as. At one big session Russell broke his arm and Mark Lynch (original owner of Skateboard World) rushed him to hospital while I remained & skated - the caring big bro’! In 77 when I was in year 11 & supposed to be studying hard I took to slippin’ out of school and heading out there for solo mid week sessions. Took Wedge Francis there a few times around then too - he just destroyed it. Looked at times like he was just gonna barge the tree out his way - f#*@in’ thing gettin’ in the way of his line!!

Occasionally popped back there over the years, in the ATS days me, Dave, Sin, Matt Davis & others had some memorable sessions there - one good shot from those sessions made it into an ATS ad.

Sad to hear it’s gone…ahhh the memories.

What was that 80’s thing with councils creating crappy doughnut stylee bowls - the ones with no coping and an island in them? E.g. Allawah, Leichardt and the old snake run at Dullos. I still used to go skate them - even though they were crap!

With the exeception of the old bit at Dullos, they are now gone and unlamented.

Annandale and Allawah are still there. both councils buried the parks under soil.

Harris Park wasn’t one of those BB66. It was brick and originally a fountainy thing of some sort. Councils round our way built ‘snake-runs’ in the 80’s and a lot of them are still about.

Telopea was one eh GH… Parker…? What a piece!

Another spot we used to frequent was at Pendle Hill. The factory where they made the cool ‘Bracks’ slacks :wink: It was built on the low side of the road and its carpark in front had a 3m high, 45 deg retaining bank parallel to the road with a 15 set of stairs perpendicular to the bank. Clever builders poured a tranny up to the stairs :laughing:

You could roll down the entrance drive, hit up the tranny and turn frontside (for naturals) for a return down the bank. Berts and rocks of sorts were the go and we’d hang there for hours…

ahh the memories…

There’s one of those weird snake runs in the middle of a park at North Rocks. I think it may still be there. It was set on quite a slope if I remember right, and led to nothing/grass (where you might have expected it to lead to a bowl or something !). Only ever rode it twice.

That ‘natural’ Pendle Hill set up sounds rad !

Errol (@ werk)

I used to skate at Harris park,Greenwich boat ramp,Roseville pipes St Joeys Hunters hill,Pymble pool,the ramp in the driveway at Theise Toyota at Parra ,drains at Fairvale and the banks at the 2 high schools near by. My friends and myself would skate heaps of spots Bondi wall Balmain wave I can’t remember them all .These were the best days I have ever had they will never be fogotten.

Ahhh… Does anyone have pics of Balmain Wave? I used to skate it a couple of times a week in the late 80s. Last time I went there was with Dave Mock and all we found was new apartments. Bummer!

MM Iam trying to round up some picts for Pangs book .If there are any of the wave I can get some coppies for you .The wave was some kind of retaining bank / loading dock thing. It probably went from nothing up to about possibly 1 mtr, the transition varied and the top was rounded roll out style.Iused to skate there with the first Balmain crew Adam Roach Howard Day and Doug etc.Good place for surf type skating lots of slides and small early grab bunny hop air things.Imet the guys who started OZI wheels there. The Balmain crew and Chellys team got to try some proto types out.Apart from that I can’t tell you much more about It. Goofys hit It front side and naturals hit it back.

Thanks Richie, that would be cool. I hope someone has some pics of it.

I think it must have been around 87-88 that a whole crew of Balmain and Five Dock locals skated it regularly. It reminded me a lot of the shallow end of the freestyle pit at North Ryde skatepark.

We used to stack wooden pallettes (spelling?) taken from the loading dock on top of the bank and ollie up to all sorts of tricky stuff. We even had a street sign pole setup for coping to grind.

After a few hours sessioning the bank we would take a wallride ramp up to Balmain Primary School. If only I could remember the names of all the crew and contact them, because I know that one guy has a lot of video of us skating those spots. Oh well… Those days may just have to remain as fond memories.

Oh… I still ride for OZI, which became Cockroach, which became Coretech. Look out for a 25th Anniversary riding for the same wheel company ad coming in 2 years. hehe…

I have been thinking of revisiting Roseville pipes. I checked it out last year and its still there. I hadn’t been there for about 27 years.In the day we dammed up one pipe with a small brick wall to divert the water into the other pipe.This is gone now but I was thinking of sand bagging it. This is only a small pipe Idid manage to fall from the top on ocaisions but was never seriously hurt.The bottom is real rough so big soft wheels are a must. If the sand bags work i may re brick it. Hopefully it will be ok for all to use at will.Will keep you posted Richie

Hey Richie, I saw your photo in Concrete Wave. Sweet. And not to give you a big head or anything,…but…you’ve been the topic of much discusion by MAS*H er’s lately. Fast becoming a legend even.

Hey Bill, hope the arm recovered from wed night.

Those pipes still skateable?

Hey, If anybody has shots of Pymble pool,skatecity,or north ryde park would they please post them…cool 8)

I can capture, edit and output to DV or VHS or DVD

Just for you Boris. These are from various outings from Newy to Ryde by train around 1981-1982. We weren’t car owners at this point so this was a big day out for us. Sim and I would have been 16 and Johnny Bogaerts 14. We skated all day each time, no food stops, just drinks of water straight from the tap.
Blurry Duane Hekata launching to early release f/side air.

Johnny B on his trusty Lamar.

Simmo lipsliding the baby bowl on a Variflex Eric Grisham. Sim lives in WA now. He could learn any trick just from sussing the how to sequence in Skateboarder mags. He did Miller flips and awesome Jay Smith style laybacks too.

Anthony Simmons f/side across the channel. To this day I still can’t believe i caught him mid channel in the photo! He was going so fast.

Me on a Sims Dave Andrecht in the Halfie.