A letter from Belgium
Jan Segers

Antwerp, 1 August 2005

Me and my girlfriend went on a trip to Scotland, hired a car and started our route near Prestwick. The first park we stopped at was Dundonald Castle in Dundonald. Noone was to be seen but I enjoyed the park nevertheless, it has quite a few good quarterpipes and a reasonable flat rail, some jumpers and kickers and a real bad mini-ramp. At the end of our voyage local people told me that the skaters prefer the nearby school though.

Next Skatestop was Cougar near Perth, wich looked amazing to me because in Belgium we just don’t have concrete parks. That day it rained though. So next day Perth was my mission, and as you all probably now, this is a must for any skater in Western Europe. Perfect curves and lines, a pool and some unexpected drops all rolling smoothly into eachother. Heaven. The only thing I missed was a rail, but that’s insignificant compared to the feeling you get surfing these concrete waves.

The only other park I got to skate was near the Western fringes of Loch Ness, but unfortunately I can’t remember the name (it’s in your list though). Not a nice park, even to Belgian standards, only the mini-ramp was super and quite broad. This was the day I broke my kingpin and hadn’t a spare. As there are no skateshops in that area (only up in Inverness they told me) I had my board finally fixed by a very helpful hardware store man on The Isle Of Skye (which is beautiful but not suited for skating).

Last skate before heading home again was the mini-ramp of Oban, which has got quite a good rating in your list but for me it was a bit to steep to enjoy to the fullest. Anyway, friends told me that I was being foolish to take my board up to Scotland, but myself and your list proved them very wrong.

And by the way, Scotland must have some of the friendliest people I ever met.

Jan Segers
34 year old skater from Belgium