Skateparks are a bit like tattoos. Everyone has an opinion, and we’ve all heard both versions: bold statement of identity, or welcoming flag for kids. (And, yikes, teenagers.)
Here’s the reframe worth sitting with: a skatepark for a kid is like a cafe for an adult. It’s a place in the city where you can show up, alone, and have a public situation almost immediately. Somewhere to be, with people, without needing an invitation. That’s rarer for kids than we like to admit, and it dates back to the 1980s and 90s, when Tony Hawk immortalised the look of the cool kid, risking skin and bone to catch air and maintain the cool.
Up on the North Coast, things are no different. From Scarborough to Lancelin, the skateparks abound. So, in the proper cinematic tradition…
The Good
The modern ones are built with flow in mind. Where old-school parks were a collection of obstacles, the new designs are one continuous line, so the crew can skate to infinity, endlessly dropping in, in a relatively safe and maximally fun way. They draw kids together, give them a place to bond and form those teenage memories in ways that not many other gentrified venues offer.
And here’s a good that snuck up on us: helmets. Those of us raised in the carefree era, when protective equipment was a jumper tied around your waist and safety advice was “watch the road”, can report that today’s kids strap in as a matter of course and lose exactly none of the fun. Progress occasionally looks like a lid on your kid’s head.
Where to drop in:
Butler, Kingsbridge Park has a great one, a bit more traditional. Amberton at Eglinton has a classic flow park near Heath Park, close to the dog park, where the endless-loop style comes into its own. Alkimos Beach has a newer one , again modern flow design but a bit more kid-friendly. Yanchep installed a great one in the early 2020s at the western edge of Splendid Park. And Two Rocks has a cool one, a bit more old school, but certainly worthy of a trip with dad on the weekend.
The Bad
Skin and bone. It’s still the deal. The flow parks are safer than what we grew up on, the helmets help, but gravel rash remains the entry fee, and every kid pays it eventually. The first big stack is a rite of passage; so is getting back on. Keep the first-aid kit stocked and resist the urge to sprint over. They’re fine. They’re almost always fine.
The Ugly
Yes, it exists. The name-calling, the pecking order, the occasional bigger kid who hasn’t learned yet. Skateparks are unsupervised public space, and unsupervised public space includes the full range of humanity, aged eight to eighteen.
The Lessons
Here’s the thing, though. It could be argued the bad and the ugly are quietly part of the good.
The stack teaches you to fall and get up. The pecking order teaches you to hold your ground, or make a mate of the big kid. There are memories to be had and lessons to learn out there, and experience in the real world, beyond the screen, is the real currency of a childhood. A skatepark delivers it by the session.
And those teenagers from paragraph one? Spend twenty minutes watching a north coast skatepark and you’ll mostly see them coaching someone’s eight-year-old through their first drop-in. The welcoming flag, it turns out, was accurate.
More for the kids: Amberton’s Flying Fox Park is leading the park arms race.