Lions Club of Torquay
Victoria, Australia, District 201V2
we serve... service to the community... learning new skills... building lasting friendships...
A community project of the Lions Club of Torquay Inc.
Check out our website and Facebook page for contact details, membership enquiries and information about Lions and our Club’s varied activities.
Check out your local Lions Club too – they are all over the world!
TORQUAY’S SUNDIAL IS UNIQUE
The Sundial of Human Involvement (so-called because it relies on the shadow cast by a person) is situated on foreshore land at Fisherman’s beach, near where Deep Creek joins the sea.
Map showing location of sundial courtesy of Melbourne Playgrounds website
This is Wadawurrung Country. And close by (to the south and west) is the land of the Eastern Maar. The Torquay Sundial represents dreaming (traditional) stories including of Mindii the ever-watchful snake, his Dreaming Tracks and of Bunjil the Eagle, creator and overseer.
The Torquay sundial is assembled in a time-honoured method of mosaic using more than 120,000 glass Tesserae tiles, laid out on an eight-metre diameter concrete slab in a natural setting overlooking the ocean and coastline. The landscaping around the Torquay Sundial uses indigenous plants.
The central theme of the mosaic depicts moon phases, star constellations, the ocean, sand dunes and coastal Torquay, including its precious local flora and fauna.
Correctly known as an Analemmatic Sundial, it consists of a central analemma (part of the eagle) and hour markers (shells) in an elliptical pattern. A person standing on the analemma can tell the time from their shadow.
The sundial registers time in relation to the azimuth of the sun. (The azimuth is the angular distance on the horizon plane between the true north-south line and the foot of the perpendicular from the sun to horizon.)
The sundial was installed in 1996 – a community project of the Lions Club of Torquay. Lion Alan Young was a driving force behind the sundial.
The sundial was designed by local artists Claire Gittings (who has also spent many hours maintaining the installation) and Glenn Romanis. They were assisted by Anne Kalamaris, Kathryn Soanes, Mark Trinham, Kyla Beale and Steve Vinton to bring the design to reality.
The calculations, marking and orientation of the sundial were done by Ian Sells of Torquay.
HOW TO USE THE SUNDIAL