MORE than 2500 people gathered in Charing Cross this morning to commemorate Anzac Day.
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The dawn service began with a march by past and present serviceman and was led by the Golden City Pipe Band.
Local bush poet Peter Worthington read aloud a poem before the Last Post was played, followed by a minute silence.
Bendigo and District RSL president Cliff Richards gave the Anzac address.
"Anzac Day is a day for all of us to reflect with gratitude, the past and the present," he said.
"It is a time for us to remember the sacrifices given by 103,000 Anzacs.
"We pay tribute to these Anzacs for giving us the world we know and enjoy today."
Mr Richards said Anzac Day was an opportunity for Australians to reflect on the values of love and sacrifice.
"These values unite us as Australians," he said.
"And these values will continue to ensure the Anzac tradition survives in strength and the ideals of freedom is ensured in a world of peace."
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Related coverage: Central Victorian Anzac Day services 2013
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Castlemaine
They arrived out of the shadows of darkness to gather.
People of all ages - young and old to stand together.
Dawn is such a moving time on Anzac Day.
Several hundred people stood outside the Castlemaine RSL Memorial Hall in Mostyn Street this morning to remember.
They listened as a list was read out of the battles Australia has fought as a nation through the ages along with the enemies our brave soldiers faced in each of those conflicts.
Two poems highlighted the true meaning of this moment.
Then the Ode - the very essence of why people had risen so early this morning to gather as one.
They shall grow now old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
But the true power of an Anzac Day dawn service doesn't arrive in words... it sits shrouded in silence.
It's that one solitary minute.
Sixty seconds that sit between the last strains of that famous bugle call of The Last Post that creates shivers far greater than any pre-dawn chilly April 25 morning could ever hope to deliver and Reveille.
In this silence the gathering is left to remember why this morning is sacred.
The more than 100,000 lives lost in war.
The heroic deeds and devastating tragedies of brave men and women.
Those in far away lands who continue to fight and sadly die in the quest for maintaining this country's freedom.
Trying to make sense of it all.
There is no words during this sacred minute... just thoughts.
Then it's over.
Those same people who arrived from the darkness retreat to the same.
They will return next year - same place, same time.
It's their duty now.
Yes... Lest we forget.
- Rod Case
