About 4000 attend Sturt Street Anzac Day Dawn Service

An estimated crowd of 4000 gathered on Ballarat’s cold Sturt St for this year’s Anzac Day ceremony to honour virtues of courage, mateship, and sacrifice.

4000 people attended the Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Ballarat Cenotaph on April 25, 2022.

Thousands attended Monday’s Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Ballarat Cenotaph during which the Australian martial virtues of courage, mateship, and sacrifice were emphasised.

An estimated 4000 gathered on cold Sturt St for the 6am ceremony led by radio broadcaster Brett Macdonald.

“We’re assembled here this morning to again honour the memories of the people and the sacrifices they made in service of our nation,” Mr Macdonald said.

“Anzac Day goes beyond the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915; it’s the day on which we remember all Australians who served and died in war and on operational service.”

He said the values embodied by 20th century Diggers continued to inform the country’s identity.

4000 people attended the Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Ballarat Cenotaph on April 25, 2022.

Ballarat Anglican Bishop Garry Weatherill said a prayer during the service and invoked the sacrifice of soldiers in Australia’s wars to call for the continual expression of “freedom and humanity”.

“On this hour on this day in this month 107 years ago, the first Anzacs landed at Gallipoli,” he said.

“We can probably only imagine what was in their heads and in their hearts: excitement, fear, thoughts of home, thoughts of parents and siblings, of girlfriends, thoughts of the future.

“All of that though was put aside as they came to this momentous landing which we gather to honour today.”

Some attendees laid wreaths and many took photos in front of the cenotaph after the service; others wandered among white commemorative crosses adjacent to the memorial which bore the names of soldiers.

A march and gunfire breakfast at the Ballarat RSL sub-branch were to follow later in the morning, as well as a ceremony at the Arch of Victory to honour 47 pairs of Ballarat brothers who served in the military.

“May they all rest proudly in the knowledge of their achievements, and may we and our successors in that heritage prove worthy of that sacrifice,” Mr Weatherill said.