For the first time since 2019, several hundred people gathered at the Ararat Cenotaph - without COVID-19 restrictions - as the march made its way down Barkley Street.

Led by the Ararat City Band, veterans and their family members walked down the street to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

The guest speaker at this year's Ararat Anzac Day service paid tribute to the Australians who have served in theatres of war over more than 100 years.

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"While we cannot forget the service and the sacrifice on the Gallipoli peninsula and the Western Front, over a century ago, we cannot allow us to define us forever," said Warrant Officer Stuart Armitage.

"The events of the second world war are as significant for Australia for as much as that conflict was on the other side of the world as it was in our own country.

"A terrible world was waged on our own doorstep. The months proceeding April 1942 was awful. (This included) the fall of Singapore in February and the surrender of the 8th division.

"Darwin was bombed for the first time in 1942 and HMAS Vampire was sunk defending a small British convoy off Sri Lanka. The defence of Australia was desperate."

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Warrant Officer Armitage said the defence of Australia was at its darkest hour on April 25, 1942.

"It was a bleak picture, not only for our nation, but for our service personnel," he said.

"They did not have the comfort we have not - the knowledge of their eventual victory. They sailed to one field of uncertainty, fear and death. they showed the quality we must all aspire. The freedoms we enjoy now were forged in the fires of defeat.

"As we look to the future, we are conscious of the dangers the world faces, it is the character of those who served 80 years ago in those dark days leading up to April 1942 that should aspire us.

"There services in direct defence of Australia shows us what really matters. Country towns like Ararat are the backbone of Australian service.

"This has showed when the men of the land joined up during WWI and WII."

Warrant Officer Armitage also paid his respects to the Indigenous Australian soldiers that served the country in war and peace.

Many community groups and organisations laid wreaths at the Cenotaph with Ararat College school leaders reading The Ode.

The dawn service was also well supported in Ararat.