Extreme weather, good spots, exceptional Bahn Mi’s and unapologetically drunk locals is pretty much what you can expect in the couple of days around the iconic West Hobart Bowl Jam, in this beautiful little ‘country’ called Tasmania.
In the words of Zepp Heyes “It’s so nice to get out of Australia for a bit”. Read through to see what this bunch of ‘mainlanders’ from the Vans Australia contingent got up to amid 42 degrees and snow in the same weekend in this weirdly wonderful neck of Australia.
After we had to reassure Zepp he didn’t need his passport to get into Tasmania we headed straight for CSP HQ. Which is what we dubbed our AirBnb that Rob from Concrete Skateparks booked as a place for all us mainlanders to crash in support of this rad comp that he also puts the prize money up for every year, a selfless and commendable act, hats off Rob. Wouldn’t happen without ya.
‘Jimmy’s Skate and Street’ organise the event every year along with a big hand from his brother Pog, a couple of genuinely nice blokes that do everything they can to keep the Hobart scene flourishing. This year saw the in-shop mini ramp cop a beautiful facelift for a Friday night cash grab jam.
Local brews flowed a little too heavily which left a couple of the crew a bit dusty on comp day. Vietnamise restaurants are on every other corner in Hobart and top quality, we had group sittings of Bahn Mi’s three times in the first day and joked we’d eat nothing but for the remainder of the trip and call ourselves the Bahn Mi army. What started as a joke became the reality.
CSP didn’t build this park but simply believe it’s a timeless piece of concrete and want to see this hesh sector of skateboarding live on.
You probably already saw that Jakob Robinson aka. ‘Stinging Kob’ took all the cash and was crowned ‘king of the bowl’ on his first WHBJ experience, a tough feat when this ol crusty beast takes a lot of warming up to.
Sam is Hobart bowl royalty and doesn’t need to prove anything here, but he bounced back from his hangover to clean up some cash and claim some NBD’s. Bs noseblunt on cruiser wheels. I think another reason I don’t have many photos of him is because of the cruiser wheels, easily the fastest person in the bowl and you couldn’t hear him coming.
Back in Australia, the parks are generally a lot newer and smoother so it took Zepp a little bit to adjust to this noseblunt slide on a piece of concrete that’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger in the desert.
Nix - frontside boner
The Hobart community really come together for this, check out the devil horns getting thrown by the baby.
Next up was the big wall. Yeah it’s a cliche’ but you have no idea how hard it is to do a scratch grind on this thing let alone anything substantial. Christoph gets things started with a hooking frontside tailside.
Trying to do Zepp's backside air justice in a photo is nearly impossible, but here goes.
Supporter squad in solid form.
Gracie Cochrane is gnarly and very rightfully was crowned queen of the bowl pulling out this hurricane and a handful of other tricks that no girl has done here before...
...watch out future, Gracie is comin.
More NBD’s, Nixen bs lipslide.
Kob...
The wind down before heading to the after party which entailed another big night I don’t need to go into detail about. However I’ll leave you with this quote from Zepp - “I just signed up to tinder and it says choose your country but I can’t find Tassie”
“I just signed up to tinder and it says choose your country… …but I can’t find Tassie”
After a quick trip up the road to fuel up on some more Bahn Mi we were ready to see what the streets of Hobart had to offer before the Bahn Mi army had to get their passports in order to head back to the mainland.
Is Hobart ever not windy? Lucky the wind had Sam's back for this one and he was able to go sideways over the actual spot we went to look at.
While skating another spot right near, I went for a little wander and stumbled on this thing. Didn’t think anyone would skate it because you have to pop off some narrow, downhill, aluminium shit. Sam was keen anyway and did it a bunch of times until he went all the way off the end.
Tolosa skatepark is a dream, Nixen with the big boosta as the questionable looking weather rolled in.
So fun that Jakob milked every soggy second of it.
Of course us mainlanders had to check out Mt Wellington and as it was forty-two degrees, two days earlier, we lost our shit when we started seeing snow as we neared the top.
After copping glimpses of the sweet view in partial cloud breaks, we realised our attire wasn’t suitable for such conditions that’s when we took shelter in some old stone shack and tripped on the pioneers climbing this mountain and building the thing.
