Organisers are anticipating large crowds will attend the various ANZAC Day services at Wānaka and Hāwea this year on Thursday, April 25.

The number of people attending local dawn services, in particular, has swelled in recent years.

Hāwea ANZAC committee chair John Taylor said he’d witnessed 600-700 attendees in the previous few years but just last year it “exploded” to more than 940 people at the service.

“I think it’s just the community involvement. Everyone knows someone who’s involved, from the school’s participation to people reading the prayer or leading the ode,” he said.

Hāwea’s Dawn Service is held around the monument on the peninsular above the dam and the large numbers attending have encouraged the committee to look at upgrading the site for future ANZAC services.

“We’re looking at improving the northern aspect, north of the monument, to make it more service friendly,” John said.

He said talks with the landowner, Contact Energy, to undertake some minor earthworks were “looking positive”.

And Hāwea’s new roundabout under construction near the peninsula will not be an impediment to those attending the service.

 “We’re confident that the new roundabout at Capell Avenue-Domain Road will be operational and sealed by ANZAC Day,” Queenstown Lakes District Council media liaison Sam White said.

In addition to the Hāwea service, there will be two services in Wānaka.

Crowds gather at Wānaka’s Cenotaph to lay wreaths and poppies. PHOTO: Wānaka App

Wānaka’s Dawn Service is on the Roys Bay foreshore opposite Helwick Street, while the Civic Service will be held in the Lake Wānaka Centre, followed by the traditional march by service personnel up Ardmore Street and the laying of wreaths and poppies at the Wānaka Cenotaph at the top of Chalmers Street.

This year the civic service will be accompanied for the first time by the internationally acclaimed New Zealand youth choir. The choir is on a tour of Otago and will have a full public performance at the Lake Wānaka Centre that afternoon at 4:00pm.

There’s also a new time planned for this year’s community breakfast for ANZAC participants. It will be provided by volunteers from the Wānaka Lions Club in the Armstrong Room at the Lake Wānaka Centre, starting after the dawn service finishes around 7:30am.

Alexandra-based bagpiper Clifford Hiscoke is also returning to Wānaka to add the evocative sounds of the pipes to the Wānaka services and, depending on the weather, a Tiger Moth is scheduled to conduct a flypast of the Hāwea and Wānaka dawn services, returning later to fly over Lake Wānaka and the Cenotaph.  

The ANZAC services begin with dawn parades starting at 7:00am in both Hāwea and Wānaka; the civic service is at 9:30am at the Lake Wānaka Centre; and the wreath and poppy laying ceremony at Wānaka’s Cenotaph usually begins around 10:45am with the flypast around 11:00am.

The ANZAC Day services are preceded by Poppy Day, designed to raise funds for the Returned Services Associations, which this year will be held on Friday April 19.