A small crowd had gathered on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin by Sunday afternoon, notes in hand, for an inaugural day of two-up at The Jetty's first Anzac Day.
"It's just a bit of fun, good day of the year to come out and honour a bit of the Anzac spirit and have a bit of fun with friends," one of the punters, Jack Ayoub said.
Mr Ayoub had come to spend the day with friends at the beer garden after attending the dawn memorial service earlier in the day. He attended the memorial most years in his hometown of Picton, but now in Canberra, had headed up to the Australian War Memorial first thing.
Stepping down from the two-up ring, Sue Smith said she was glad to see people brought back together again to mark the day.
"This is the first time that they've celebrated here because it's only been open [around] four months," she said of the Jetty, opened by the owners of Kingston's The Dock after securing a lease from the National Capital Authority.
"But normally, we try and go to the dawn service, and obviously, because of COVID we have been celebrating with a group of people, just in a cul de sac."
Ms Smith had been pulled up to spin by her son, who was announcing the game.
"He convinced me to go and celebrate and do the spinning," she said.
"It's wonderful to see everyone out and see all the servicemen and women with their with their medals."
Canberra Services Club President Mike Kinniburgh said attendance at the club's dawn service had been "outstanding", with about 110 people gathering at Manuka, where the club's old home once stood.
"A lot of current serving people and a lot of our existing members from the old club [gathered]," he said.
"It just had that feel of a beautiful morning."
Numbers at the club's new home in Barton had ebbed and flowed throughout the day, as people came back from war memorial events and headed off once more to meet up with friends.
"It's the first time they've been out for a couple of years," Mr Kinniburgh said, adding that the day had been a chance for servicemen and women to meet up with mates they usually commemorate the day with.
"We had about 120 with breakfast, then from lunch on we've had a group of about probably 140, and we had a good [two-up] game going out there for a while, we had 50 people."
"So we're back, that's the great thing about it -- we feel like we're back," Mr Kinniburgh said, with Anzac Day commemorations returning to the club after the disruptions of the pandemic over the last two years.
ACT police said the day had largely been without incident, though some protest activity from the so-called Convoy to Canberra group had occurred during the dawn service and at Government House later in the afternoon.
More than 18,000 people gathered at the war memorial's dawn service, the largest ceremony in three years.
The memorial's director Matt Anderson had projected attendance of around 5000 prior to Monday, with 4500 people turning out to a ticketed service in 2021.
Development works at the memorial shifted the service to the west into the Sculpture Garden.
