What I did for ANZAC Day

Today, my Mum, Sister and I woke up very early to go to the Dawn Parade at the Auckland War Museum. We woke up at 4:30 - 4:45, and got ready. We put very warm clothes on. We had something to eat, and we prepared something to take with us.We got everything we needed and went drove onto the motorway and got off on the Port turn off. Then we parked the car and walked over to the Domain. It took us about 15-20 minutes. When we got to the Museum, we found a place to stand and watch the ceremony.

When the ceremony finished,I got the Niue flag and draped it over my shoulders, and my mum, sister and I went to go and place our poppies on the cross. We also had three reeds. We put a tag on the reeds. On the tags, it said the name of a soldier, their rank and a number. Two of the reeds was for some people on my mum's side, and the other one was for someone on my dad's side. When we got to the court of remembrance,we put our poppies on the cross and looked for a place to put the reeds. Because I had the flag on me, people paid a lot of attention to me. More than once, when I was putting the reeds down, the press was taking pictures of me.

After finally deciding on a place to put the reeds,we walked towards the field of remembrance to see if there were any crosses that had a name of a family member. Still the cameras were taking their pictures of me. After 15 - 20 minutes of looking, I waved goodbye to the cameras, and we walked back towards the car.

I enjoyed my day today, because it was my first Dawn parade, and also because of the cameras. I felt very happy and energetic today, and I also learnt new things from the people speaking at the service.