This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
38.69357° S, 146.08150° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
A large colourful fish that turns with the wind, incorporating a sculpture from the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Current visitor material identifies the wind fish in Fish Creek as a collaborative piece adding another colourful element to the town's footpath, and a licensed photograph taken on 28 December 2025 confirms it remains in place.
Making it a wind vane is the good decision. A static fish is a sculpture; a fish that swings to face the wind is behaving like a fish in a current, always pointing upstream. It is also the only kinetic object in this catalogue that works without machinery – no bearings to fail beyond a single pivot, no power, no maintenance schedule.
The Games connection puts it in the dispersal this campaign has been tracing: seventy-two fish sculptures made for the 2006 Melbourne opening ceremony, one for each competing nation, scattered afterwards across Victoria. The Seychelles blenny went to Avondale Heights, the Koran angelfish to Pyramid Hill, the big-eyed scad to Edenhope. Fish Creek incorporated its into something new rather than simply installing it, which is the most creative response any of the recipient towns has made.
The town is well supplied. It already has the six-metre mullet lying dead on the roof of the Art Deco Fish Creek Hotel, made by Colin Suggett in 1989 and restored in 2016 after locals rattled tins for it.
Two very different fish, in a town named for a creek named for its fish.
On the year it went up or its size, the record is silent.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
The Commonwealth Games-era wind fish remains a current Fish Creek landmark. Its object position is now independently field-GPS-checked; visitor parking remains a separate arrival task.
ACCESS
The Big Fish Windvane is at 7 Falls Road, Fish Creek. A January 2024 field survey GPS records -38.693568, 146.081498 for the Bills trough directly beneath the fish sculpture, and a separately licensed December 2025 photograph confirms the sculpture remains in place. The Great Southern Rail Trail says Fish Creek parking is available in various town-centre locations, including just off Falls Road and behind the BP service station car park. PBT has not yet mapped a specific public parking coordinate, so direct navigation is withheld; use lawful town-centre parking (not service-station customer bays) and walk to the sculpture.
Australia’s Bills Horse Troughs · recorded 2026-09-11
Field record sighted 8 January 2024 gives GPS -38.693568, 146.081498 for the trough directly under the Big Fish sculpture at 7 Falls Road. Used for object geometry; nearby street parking is not treated as a pinned arrival.
Fish Creek parking: 'Available in various locations in the town centre, including just off Falls Road and behind the BP Service Station car park.' No coordinates.
