Pandemic-inspired driveway dawn services will endure across Australia this Anzac Day, with many planning home gatherings again this year.
In the past two years people were encouraged to commemorate at home, after the cancellation of dawn services and parades due to COVID, and many held their own vigils on verandahs and driveways.
For some, it was the start of a new tradition.
"It's been really special," Newcastle resident Megan Mills said.
"We get our fire pit out and we send a little note out to all our neighbours and we do a dawn service where we broadcast the Newcastle service over a speaker."
As dawn approaches, the small group stands in silence to honour Australia's servicemen and women, past and present.
"Then we do tea and coffee and put on bacon and egg rolls," Ms Mills said.
This Anzac Day will be the first Ms Mills can remember without her grandfather, Douglas Keevers.
"The year before last I played my trumpet … but I don't think this year I'll be able to do that," she said, fighting tears.
"Anzac Day was always a big day for us. We'd do the dawn service and we'd get him ready for the parade."
A World War II veteran, Mr Keevers died last year a few weeks before his 100th birthday.
"It is going to be tough, but we've also got to think about what he actually gave back to Australia and how proud we are to be his family," Ms Mills said.
Mr Keevers was a navigator in a plane that was shot down over Holland.
"As grandad stood up to get the pilot his parachute he got shot through the leg. So he had shrapnel in his leg for many, many years," Ms Mills said.
Mr Keevers was one of two survivors. He was discovered by a Dutch farmer lying in a field, wrapped in a blood-covered parachute.
The farmer had been alerted by the sound of his cows mooing unusually loudly.
"The Dutchman took grandad into his home but then the Germans found out he was there and took him into a POW camp … he was there for two years," Ms Mills said.
"We're very proud of what he did for us all."
She says her grandfather proudly wore his medals each Anzac Day at the Newcastle parade – until the pandemic forced a change in routine.
And so began the family's driveway dawn service.
"The past two years we would do our driveway dawn service and then head to the nursing home to wave at him with our Australian flags," Ms Mills said.
"We would call [grandad] on the phone whilst standing on the main road at Toronto waving and cheering.
"I think we've just found this new tradition is our way of honouring Anzac Day."
"Of course we loved going into the dawn service but ... our neighbours who weren't able to go due to illnesses or health or things like that, they were able to honour Anzac day in their own special way."
