South East Coast

I got a call mid week from Sim Warren telling me to pack my camera gear and head out to his area for the weekend because the weather was going to be hot and they were all keen to skate some big shit. The area in question is on the South East Coast of the UK with places such as Ramsgate, Herne Bay, Folkstone and they had planned a trip to Hastings. It’s only an hour and half train ride from London and we started the weekend at Whitstable train station were I met up with Sim, Andrew Halls, Ian and a surprise visitor Mike Welland. Sim was keen on a bank to grind right in the station car park so we ended up getting this shot.

Bank to ally-oop makio
Next spot to meet everyone was at Swalecliff skate park, right near the beach. The bowl was amazing and small street course was planned out really well packing a lot of grind blocks. Sorry, no photo’s I was skating a lot.

Lunch- Fish and Chips
After a short stop off in Herne bay for some fish and chips we headed to Ramsgate for a few spots. Ellington park has a rail that curves, its square and is on both sides. The infamous Farzad joined our crew at the skatepark and was keen to hit these rails starting the session off with a bunch of warm up tricks, topside and ally-oop tricks,

Farzad, Sweaty on Ellington Park square rail
Hallsy also joining the session with loads of topside tricks including christgrinds, topsouls and fishbrains.
Welland was eyeing off the other one with a nice backslide and Farzad also lacing sweatstance and topsmistrials.

Mike Welland, Backslide
The sea front has a ledge that is waxed really nice and was long enough for some lines.
 
Sim Warren, Truespin Topside Soul with steeze
The sun was dropping behind the huge seafront wall so a nice chill ledge session ensued for the next hr or so. Here are some tricks that went down.

Sim Warren, Ally-oop Fish to Soul
Nandos was calling for dinner so a feast went down then off to Westgate-on-sea to check out some old school spots that Ian suggested. A wall ride over a 10 set was sick but too dark to skate so the natural launch sounded sick just down the road. Sim Warren stepped up for the last trick of the day boosting this dodgy launch for a nice 180 that grab to finish the day around 11pm.
 Sunday, Hasting’s was calling but not before we checked out the wall ride from the night before. The Sun was blazing around midday so this was the warm-up spot. Hallsy really wanted the wall ride 180 out but not really feeling it as he’s never tried anything like it before. He took a few falls and some skin off his back but he landed it sweet and really happy with his efforts, unfortunately bruising his heal and taking him out for the rest of the day. This was really what Sim liked doing so he stepped cabbing into the wall ride and 180’ing out to finish the trick so nice with smooth style.

Farzad really wanted to hit a kink next to a Viking ship so we headed there after a sweet breakfast at Moe’s Diner. The nicest guy on the planet with huge burgers. The Kink is steep and fast and Farzad wanted to warm up but having not skated in a while he ended up taking a hard fall on his already damaged hip putting him out for the rest of the day. Off to Hastings

Breakfast at Moe’s
With huge industrial estates in the mountains around hasting, it offered a lot of rails, kinks and gaps and had been skated a lot before. Farzad just picking up new skates off Sim’s floor hit the rail with speed and trying all the tricks that wouldn’t smash his damaged hip. Hallsy trying to skate around but couldn’t, Sim was the only one left hitting a really nice Savannah with style.

Farzad showing me how big the fish is he caught while back mistrialing the rail
One last spot was a sweet rail and Sim wanted one trick on it before headed off. Back, backslide first try for a bet with Hallsy and winning 5 pounds.

Sim Warren, 5 Pound Back Backslide first go. So smooth. Hastings Rail
Getting pumped up by Hallsy and Farzad, Sim wanted to step up for a photo so then he laced a True-topside soyal to finish a really sick weekend of skating from all the boys. A long drive back then a long train back for me to London getting home around 11:30pm followed. The guys stepped up and skated hard for 2 days. It was an awesome weekend with good mates. Well worth traveling down there.. For more sick photo’s, make sure you get a copy of Kingdom Magazine Issue 7 and check them out here www.kingdom-mag.co.uk

The Beach