ANZAC Day Dawn Service - Sorrento Memorial
The Peninsula's most quietly moving civic event. A dawn service at the Sorrento memorial, a community breakfast at the RSL, and a village that drops its tourist costume for a morning.
ANZAC Day on the Peninsula is best done in Sorrento. The memorial service starts at 5:50am, the dawn light over Port Phillip is quiet and cold, and the village stops being a weekend playground for the duration of the ceremony.
The RSL opens for a community breakfast afterwards - eggs, bacon, coffee, and the kind of crowd you don't see in Sorrento's cafes. Stay for it if you can. Then wrap up in a long coat and walk the back beach before the rest of the village wakes up.
There are smaller dawn services at Rye, Rosebud and Mornington the same morning. Sorrento is the one to attend if you're choosing.