No rain is anticipated but a typically cool morning and partly cloudy day is forecast for ANZAC Day in the Upper Clutha this Friday (April 25).

Local ANZAC commemorations begin with dawn services at 7am at Wānaka and Hāwea; Wānaka’s civic service is at 9:30am, followed by a parade and the laying of wreaths and poppies at the Cenotaph around 10:45am.

The Hāwea District ANZAC Committee and Hāwea Community Association will host Hāwea’s dawn service at the ANZAC peninsula on the Lake Hāwea dam. The service will begin with a “symbolic thunderclap” and a call to commemoration.

Flypast at Hāwea’s Dawn Service. PHOTO: Wānaka App

Students from Hāwea Flat School and Te Kura o Tititea Mt Aspiring College (MAC) will participate, as well as a guest speaker, piper, trumpeter, and the traditional flypast (weather permitting).

The Lake Hāwea Hotel has offered parking for ANZAC attendees as has Contact Energy on its land beside the garage (on the Wānaka side of the dam), signified by a large poppy on the gate.

Hāwea Men’s Shed is hosting a breakfast at the Lake Hāwea Community Centre following the dawn service. Tickets are available by emailing [email protected].

Wānaka’s Dawn Service is held in the carpark at the lake end of Helwick Street. MAC student Noah Moody will speak at the short service, and Jen Anderson and Janine Weatherly will sing the New Zealand and Australian national anthems.

Following the service, the public is invited to breakfast in the Armstrong Room, Lake Wānaka Centre (LWC), hosted by the Wānaka and Districts Lions Club and Upper Clutha Lions Club.

Piper Clifford Hiscoke leads the visiting New Zealand Youth Choir in an impromptu chorus at the Cenotaph last year. PHOTO: Wānaka App

Wānaka’s Civic Service at LWC will be led by Reverend Damon Plimmer. St John Wānaka will provide a Colour Party and four MAC students (Ania-Kanu Saklani, Lucy Redford, Ryan Enoka, and Charlie Roy) will be the guest speakers.

Former Cardrona entertainer Martin Curtis and MAC student Ruby Smith will each sing during the service; trumpeter Amos Wells will perform at the dawn and cenotaph services; and piper Clifford Hiscoke will, once again, perform at all three Wanaka services, as well as lead the parade about 10:30am from the LWC to the Cenotaph.

At the Cenotaph on Chalmers Street, attendees will be welcomed by Wānaka RSA committee member Commander Lyal Cocks (RNZN Rtd) and encouraged to lay wreaths and poppies at the foot of the Cenotaph

Weather permitting, classic aircraft pilot Peter Hendrix plans a flypast over both dawn services and over Lake Wānaka and the Cenotaph, wrapping up Upper Clutha’s ANZAC Day commemorations.