Heritage Operations / Graves and monuments / NZ Memorial, Canberra / Anzac Parade
The National Capital's major ceremonial avenue is set along the magnificent land axis which forms a key feature of the original 1912 plan for Canberra by Walter Burley Griffin. The Parade is easily distinguishable, especially when viewed from Mt Ainslie. The red gravel (some say symbolising blood) and the mixed plantings of Australian Blue Gums (Eucalyptus bicostata) and New Zealand (Hebe) species is the element which links the Parliamentary Zone to the northern lakeshore.
ANZAC Parade was officially opened on 25 April 1965 to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the ANZAC landing in Gallipoli. ANZAC is the name given to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps soldiers who landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915.
Commemorative events take place each year on ANZAC Day, and on Remembrance Day which commemorates the end of the 1914-1918 Great War, at the Stone of Remembrance in front of the Australian War Memorial. The ANZAC Parade Open Day and other significant anniversaries attract crowds of visitors to the various memorials which line the Parade.
The memorials along Anzac Parade are: the Australia Hellenic Memorial, the Australian Army Memorial, the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial, the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial, the Rats of Tobruk Memorial, the Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy Memorials, and the Kemal Ataturk Memorial. Sites are identified for memorials to the Korean War and the Australian National Service Nurses Memorial. The New Zealand Memorial stands at the Constitution Avenue entry point to ANZAC Parade.