Youness Amrani throws a hardflip down the set, Hermann Stene holds on to a backside 360 and various other tricks are sailed down the stairs and followed by surprisingly few splash sounds. I’m pretty sure that first place went to Neverton Casella for a switch heel, but the people’s choice award definitely went to TJ Rogers – showing up late and possibly slightly pissed, battling and eventually riding away from a switch frontside 360, and in the process giving us the weeks’ ‘internet breaker’ in the form of his knocking off Jake Phelps’ glasses mid attempt – a proper bee sting whilst floating mid-air, like a dishevelled Chuck Norris who probably smelt a bit like the mattresses at Christiania.

Just as I’m about to try and shoot from a different angle, Sox appears to tell me that he saw me on the bridge and has, in fact, found another good angle. Thus the photos you see above and below, through a human archway of pure stoke, as the crowd took to cheerleading duties with the gusto that only hungover semi-delirium can bring.

We get to Christiania to find Wonderland, for one of the first times ever, booked out – a segment of the Copenhagen Fashion Week crowd have commandeered it for a photo shoot. Sox pokes his head in and describes it as ‘bizarre’, while I decide to ignore it completely and concentrate on trying to loosen my damaged back muscles up with a session on the outdoor DIY section. This gets going quickly, despite plenty of collision opportunities offered by the combination of clueless fashion types and cataclysmically stoned tourists, with various visitors dropping in and out of the session including East Coast luminary and Buckfast aficionado Fred Gall. After shooting a couple of photos with Sox we manage to assemble a small crew to bike, or in my case skate, out to Refshalen early enough for a session at The Triangle before the crowds descend.

The drizzle thickened, we rode through it, we held out hope in the same way a starving man in a desert would hold out hope for an oasis just a short crawl over the next sand dune…but to no avail. As we reach the island I am separated from the group by a length of cobbled path, which somehow means that I don’t see them again for a few hours. Instead I find myself standing underneath a raised, leaking boat, with ten or so similarly optimistic types, sipping on a beer that one of them hands me. Eventually someone hears word via text that the event has been cancelled, and I begin the long walk back into Copenhagen with fIREHOSE in my speakers for company – a sun drenched counterpoint to the Scandinavian gloom, images of Natas spinning on hydrants under perfect blues rather than a sodden slice of concrete at what feels like the end of the world.

Fuck it, this is what makes a skate trip – from the injuries that nearly break you in half, to sitting at a bar watching rain drops hit the windows like angry midges determined to suck every drop of stoke from your blood – it’s the unpredictability which makes it fun. It’s character building, or something or other…