Officer Cadet Tom Delaney is looking forward to marching on the new parade ground at the Australian War Memorial. It will be good for his feet and good for his honour.
"It offers the opportunity to think deeply about why I am in the Defence Force," the 20-year-old said as he stood on the gravel of the expanded parade ground.
"I joined the Defence Force to develop myself but also to defend Australia's national interest."
And good for his feet? The gravel suits marching.
He is used to the bitumen of the Royal Military College at Duntroon or the grass of the Defence Force Academy.
But grass gets mushy and muddy and bitumen just doesn't do it like gravel does, he said, turning his heel on the gravel of the new parade ground. There's something sensual about the scrunch.
"It's hard to explain. You have to do a lot of pivoting and the gravel feels nice underfoot," he said.
There are probably more significant aspects to the new parade ground of the Australian War Memorial.
Its completion during the $550 million rebuild of the national place of remembrance marks the return of a kind of post-pandemic normality, in that one of the most significant parts of the nation's Anzac Day commemoration will again take place back in front of the iconic building. During the rebuilding, it's been pushed to the side.
And the new parade ground can seat 4400 spectators on stone terracing. The old parade ground could only seat large numbers if unsightly scaffolding was erected on the grass slopes around it.
"The most important aspect that will be available for Anzac Day this year is an enlarged parade ground. It's opened the space up," Memorial director Matt Anderson said.
The new parade ground is square compared with the old one, which was an irregular oval - pie-shaped, as Mr Anderson described it.
"Those who are in the military tell me that what they appreciate is a large, rectangular or square parade ground so they can conduct their drill appropriately," he said.
"And that was a bit of a challenge in the rather odd-shaped previous parade ground."
The Stone of Remembrance is still at the side where it was moved for the rebuilding. It's the centre-piece of the Dawn Service. By next year, it (and so the Dawn Service) should be back at the front of the building, facing down Anzac Parade.
But the veterans' parade will be something like it was before the pandemic constrained it with social distancing and limits on numbers.
Before COVID, Anzac Day in Canberra was a time and place for reunions. Those meetings of old comrades will happen again this year.
"This is the first year we can welcome family contingents," RSL president John King said. He served in the army and has been marching in the Anzac Day parade since 1993.
"We have a lot of World War II veterans coming along this year from all over Australia," Kimberley Hicks, chief executive of the Returned and Services League in the ACT, said.
She served in the air force and Anzac Day is special for her.
"I feel very humbled. I do often shed a tear when I see older veterans. It breaks the heart."
