Queenstown’s Returned and Services’ Association (RSA) holds a dawn service by Queenstown Bay’s Memorial Gates at 6.30am.
Guest speakers include mayor John Glover and year 13 Wakatipu High student, Eva Tilsley, who co-won an RSA speech competition.
After the service, which lasts about 45 minutes, there will be a parade up to the Queenstown Memorial Centre for a short service and wreath-laying — a breakfast buffet follows at the Memorial Centre.
The Arrowtown RSA then takes over with a march at 10am from the Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall to The Cenotaph on Soldiers Hill.
A service then takes place at 10.30am with guest speakers including Arrowtown-raised George Forrest, who is in the navy, and Wakatipu High’s other speech competition winners — year 13’s Matheus Zanon Moreira and year 11’s Jack Barlow.
In the event of rain, the service is held instead in the hall with the march to The Cenotaph coming afterwards, or if it’s really wet, to the war memorial beside the Arrowtown pool.
At noon, Arthurs Point’s Edith Cavell Bridge will be closed for a short ceremony.
Following the national anthem, local bagpiper Graeme Glass will march on the bridge while playing The Lament for Edith Cavell — Edith Cavell was a British nurse who was executed for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied territory in Belgium.
There is also a remembrance service at Glenorchy’s war memorial, beside the town hall, from 9.30am, followed by morning tea — attendees are asked to bring a plate, and, for Kingston residents, a service at the Athol Memorial Hall from 10am.
