“Rad” skate park impresses locals

Sam Geerlings makes a jump during the opening of the Wonthella Skate Park last Friday.

It’s already been described as rad, epic and gnarly – and it’s been open less than a week!

The Wonthella Skate Park was revealed and opened to the public last week after undergoing an extensive $800,000 refurbishment and extension.

It was a site to see on Friday with aerial tricks, spins, speed and even backflips, with people of all ages on skateboards, scooters, bikes and roller blades trying and testing out the new and improved skate park.

The popular skating zone was fenced off in April this year and was re-opened to the public with some very impressive new features.

The extension covered an area of approximately 700m2 with a whole new addition as well as a refurbishment to the existing park.

With features for the novice skater up to the advanced, the new skate park includes new additions such as grind rails, ramps, quarterpipe runs, banks, ledges and steps.

A very impressive, yet daunting, 2.5 meter bowl has been installed which most definitely isn’t for the faint at heart although it didn’t seem to deter many of the users of the facility when it opened on Friday.

City of Greater Geraldton Mayor, Ian Carpenter, said the new skate park had already received rave reports.

“The feeling and energy amongst those using the new facility is just phenomenal,” he said.

“It has created quite a buzz amongst our community which is definitely something we aimed for.

“The community had been rallying for this and we listened to their suggestions and we are ecstatic that this has come to fruition.”

If 21-year-old skating enthusiast Jacob Bumbak had one word to describe the new park it would be “rad”.

“We’ve all been waiting for this for such a long time so it’s awesome to see it finally up and running,” he said.

“People are saying it’s the best skate park in the state. It’s going to take us a while to get used to it but all the skaters are really happy.”

Award-winning and renowned company CONVIC Pty Ltd was awarded the contract for the project with a large portion of the work going to local businesses.

Beresford Electrical Services have been separately contracted to provide and install the new floodlighting which will be installed this week.

The project was funded with $306,121 from the City, $310,546 from Royalties for Regions and $183,333 from the Department of Sport and Recreation.

There will be an official opening of the Wonthella Skate Park in the near future which is yet to be announced.