But where to from here? Will the torch continue to be passed on?
Next year's crowds are almost certain to be thinner and, while 2018 will mark 100 years from the end of the Great War and the signing of the armistice, one wonders how Anzac Day will sustain as the past disappears into history and generations die away, replaced by new ones with a more tenuous link to the battlefields of Turkey and Europe.
Faced with falling membership, the Returned Services Association has, quite rightly, opened its doors to all.
Less a veterans' haven and more a focal point for the community at large, it is a sign of the passage of time.
So it will be interesting to see how the keepers of this flame of nationhood keep it burning over the coming years.
Today, however, such matters will be put well aside as tributes are paid, valour saluted, hardship recalled and stories told.
