By STACEY BODGER
ROTORUA - People tiptoed through puddles and warmed their hands on geothermal steam.
The Te Arawa Maori Returned Services League dawn remembrance was taking place at Ohinemutu, on the shores of Lake Rotorua.
A highland band led the returned servicemen through veils of the steam, accentuated by the damp, chilly weather, to the cenotaph at Ohinemutu's Muruika Soldiers' Cemetery - one of the burial grounds for members of 28 (Maori) Battalion.
In Rotorua, like elsewhere around the country, hundreds of people young and old gathered to commemorate Anzac Day and the men and women who served their country.
In Rotorua, veterans standing in muddy puddles which covered the toes of their shoes chuckled as they were told to "mark time" - march on the spot - as rain clouds threatened above them.
A crowd of about 800 gathered in the weak light which shone from the windows of historic St Faith's Church, including sisters Kahu, Ngatai and Tania Bennett, aged 5, 6 and 7, whose grandfather and six great-uncles all enlisted for the Second World War, although not all saw action.
Their mother, Rowana Bennett, said she had taken her daughters because she wanted them to have childhood memories of Anzac Day and to appreciate the principle of fighting for what they believed in.
Natalie Taylor, whose great-grand-father was at Gallipoli, travelled from Tauranga to attend the service in his home town.
"It's so humbling that one of my family was a part of this - the history and emotion makes me cry every year," she said.
Paki Inia, QSM, who served in the Maori Battalion during the Second World War and is patron of the Te Arawa league, urged the crowd, and especially the children, to remember the supreme sacrifice the soldiers had made.
To mark the end of the service the Western Heights School choir sang Au E Ihu, a hymn often sung on the battlefields by the Maori Battalion.
In Hamilton, 500 people braved cold, wet weather for the commemorations.
The heavy rain stopped briefly before the march to the cenotaph in Memorial Drive - led by a pipe band and returned servicemen - but started again after the dawn service.
In Russell, veterans gathered around a newly built cenotaph. It is topped by a marble flame on which the names of 11 local soldiers lost in past wars are engraved.
Crowds in Napier heard Lieutenant-Commander Rick Watson of the Australian High Commission say that in a perfect world there would be no war.
"Unfortunately this is not a perfect world."
In Whangarei, about 200 veterans and their descendants left from outside the RSA headquarters in Rust Ave just before dawn and marched through the city to the cenotaph in Rose St.
Those unable to walk were driven in vans from rest homes and clubs.
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