Last weekend we took a group of young skaters on The Boarding School's first road trip away. Some poor planning meant the date didn't get shared as early as we'd have liked, and COVID prevented 1 or 2 from coming, so we only had a small group. But everything was booked and the weather looked decent so at 10am Saturday morning we set off in search of new parks and rad tricks!
First up was Cirencester. A huge sprawling concrete skate park between Cheltenham and Swindon, Cirencester has it all. Ledges, rails, half pipes, banks, stairs, hips, fun-boxes... the list goes on! No wonder we spent 4 hours there. One of our skaters showed some true grit and determination to land their backside bigspin over the hip, so worth it in the end!
Next on the list was Churchdown, just outside Gloucester. With a big bowl, Churchdown is more for the transition skater. Unfortunately, our group were unimpressed. Maybe it was the scale, or the tired legs, or maybe the 10s of scooter kids drawn to the park by the circus that had set up in the field opposite. We didn't stay long (despite this being one of my favourite parks haha).
Last stop for day 1 was Camp Hillcrest and the place we'd be spending the night. Camp Hillcrest is set in the peaceful rolling hills of Monmouthshire, but the perfect place for a group of skaters to stop for the night. Boasting a private indoor concrete skatepark of its own, T-shirt printing, graffiti and board making workshops all with some pretty cool air BnB accommodation, it's definitely worth a visit.
After the group had eaten wood fired pizza, screen printed a T, bounced about in the treetop cargo net, and skated out the last once of energy it was scary movies and sleep.
Next day, after fuelling up at breakfast there was more skating, more trick battles and then on to our final skatepark of the trip Monmouth. Another decent size park with lots on offer including a bowl which spreads into a super wide mini ramp, technical street section and a longer run with brick banks and big stairs. We were joined by Daryl Partington a pro skater of many years, which helped bring the energy levels up, by getting some huge tricks down the stairs.
Lots of filming and last minute lands before getting back on the bus for the last time and heading back to Bris.
Long Day was the catch phrase of the trip, and it certainly was. Thanks so much to the amazing group of young skaters, great people of Camp Hillcrest, our staff Ben and Jill, and Daryl for joining us at the last park, for making the first Boarding School road trip such a positive and memorable one!
Check out the edit the group put together from the weekend here...
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