This is Five Dock, Sydney, Australia, part of it, anyway. The old bowl, below, is kind of rougher than it actually looks in this photo. And it looks pretty rough. I read somewhere that it was once voted the worst skate bowls in Sydney. Or maybe even Australia. I think it was one of the first, anyway. A couple of years ago it totally done over, except the old bowl stayed.

The new bowl is bigger than shown in the picture, above. That is the little part of it. There are two more connected bowls and I think the highest part is about 14 foot high, the lowest is about 6 foot high.

The other thing is called the shell. Well I call it the shell. It is just a little bit of fun. I like it cause when I first came to Five Dock and couldn't really do much more than stand on a board one of the old blokes told me to just go in it as fast as possible and turn and come out again. I went charging in and just smashed up.

The old bowl is past vertical and fairly tight and shaped like a bath. No one goes in it much, but there are legends about the occasional pro or drunk person that (some fucking how) drops in and does some amazing stuff.

The other day I attempted to impress my children and everyone else by rolling in on my BE40 which was interesting, but of course no one even noticed. Well my kids did, I suppose, but they just thought I was a wanker.

The new bowl is like this perfectly shaped and surfaced thing. One of these days when no one is around, I'll give the BE a go there - oddly enough I am more confident since breaking my leg, which doesn't really make sense, but who cares.