ANZAC Day Dawn Service, Metung

Awoke early this morning to wander bleary-eyed the 100m across the park to join the Dawn Service in Metung.

Dawn. Note Meander's mast in the background.

A beautiful morning and a large turn out at the service marking 100 years since the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli during the first World War. We haven't attended a lot of Dawn Services, but it did seem quite appropriate when a couple of kookaburras let rip during the two minutes of silence. This is a time when Kiwis and Aussies stand comfortably side by side in "mateship" and somehow, as a Kiwi long term resident in Australia, the kookaburras reminded me where I was and that I was welcome to be here

After the service the RSL (where the free bacon and egg rolls were) was packed, so we retired to the Village Green with Ivan and Louise (s/v Brio) from Nungurner, Richard, Isabel, Robert and Rebecca (s/v Sapphire) from Chinaman's Creek and made our own on the free BBQs as the sun came up.

We were also joined by Rob Irvine (father of friends from Newport) complete with his chest full of medals which started with his conscription to go to Vietnam. So stories were swapped of sailing adventures, early days on The Lakes, and life in the army.

BBQ ANZAC Day breakfast on the Village Green

Seemed like a good way to remind ourselves what we should be thankful for, who we have to thank, and mistakes to avoid in the future. 

For those who want to get in the mood, I think The Pogues summed it up superbly.

As a post script, we returned for the 11am service and were touched that both the Australian and New Zealand national anthems were sung. We've learned the words to the Australian anthem and so we contributed there, however we saved our efforts for really belting out the NZ anthem, as there were only about 3 of us in the crowd singing. This was fine and, although I at least am no great singer, I think our efforts were appreciated and acknowledged by much of the crowd on our side of the green until, dammit, the band launched into the second verse of the NZ national anthem. Only foreigners would ever dream of doing this (they didn't play a second verse of the Australian anthem) and I had no idea the NZ anthem even had a second verse! - can ANYONE out there quote it to me without referring to the internet...?  Damn, what to do? The singing suddenly got really quiet, so I decided that a rerun of the first verse was better than nothing (and probably most of the crowd wouldn't notice anyway) and so it was. I'm sure the band did that to us on purpose - perhaps the kookaburras were laughing at us after all, rather than welcoming us to foreign shores. Oh well, stuff 'em, we're here...