The dawn light just after 6am on Saturday revealed the largest Australian influx to this shore since April 25, 1915, spilling over the reaches of North Beach and around the natural amphitheatre.
The originals of 1915, Anzacs and Turks alike, would have been astounded by this pilgrimage, part homage, part battlefield tourism, part Gallipoli-inspired national ethos.
At this time and place 100 years before the scene was whistling bullets, confusion, blood and bravado. This time, the visiting Australians, young and old, rugged up tight against the cold and fortified during a long night, were patient, happy, united and, above all, dedicated to honouring their ancestors of four generations earlier.
These gullies, peaks, ridges and beaches in this beautiful part of Turkey have become, by mutual consent, Australia's spiritual property.
Tony Abbott's speech hailed the transformation of Anzac at its centenary. Our task, the Prime Minister says, is not merely to remember Anzac but to emulate its spirit. This is now the essence of being an Australian.
"They did their duty; now, let us do ours," he said. "They gave us an example; now, let us be worthy of it. They were as good as they could be in their time; now, let us be as good as we can be in ours."
The centenary is an end and a beginning. The veterans are gone but the historical memory is a given. Gallipoli will never die.
The crowds at Anzac Cove and at the dawn services around the nation show Anzac's power as a deeply unifying force. Any hint of triumphalism is dead.
The political disputes about Anzac fanned during the 1960s are obsolete because the meaning has transcended the 1915 values of king, empire and country.
Gallipoli is not about defeat or victory but the universal virtues, as Abbott said, of perseverance, duty, compassion, conquering fear and sacrifice for one's friends.
This invests Anzac with a spiritual essence relevant to any age. Proof, moreover, of the originating sacrifice is forever available from a visit to the beaches, cliffs and the Lone Pine memorial at Gallipoli.
Abbott's parable has power in its simplicity: the template of the Anzacs "helps us to be better than we otherwise would be".
It is a self-evident truth. Nobody visiting Gallipoli for the centenary would doubt it. As you walk the ridges, there is a permanent question in one's head: how did the Anzacs survive here for eight terrible months?
They were faithful "even unto death", vesting the legend with its quasi-religious force.
The geographical and security dimensions of this journey are testing but infinitely rewarding.
I left my ship at 7pm the night before the dawn service, crossed the Dardanelles by a bus on a ferry, went through five check points and returned to ship 23 hours later. That was a quick turnaround compared with others.
The centenary that Abbott and New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key commemorated together at Gallipoli has seen a military tradition evolve into an inclusive spirit of national self-realisation.
Key said it was no longer necessary to say "lest we forget" because it was apparent the memory had been entrenched. Abbott said that Australia was not just "a place on a map" but was shaped by "our collective memory".
Nowhere was this so apparent, nor its mystique so powerful, than at Lone Pine. Abbott highlighted the role of Lone Pine in Australian memory: once a site of unspeakable violence it is now a garden of peace and beauty with its monument, wall of remembrance and rows of graves.
The Australian practice at Gallipoli on Anzac Day is the dawn service at the beach adjacent to the landing site and the mid-morning service at Lone Pine. Abbott spoke at both. So did Prince Charles, representing Britain.
After the dawn service, 8000 Australians hiked nearly 4km to the high ground. During three days of fighting in August 1915 men resorted to bayonets, improvised bombs, hands, fists and boots.
Abbott said that at Lone Pine men "were taken to the very edge of their physical and emotional limits" and then beyond.
It stands today as a symbol of that compact between the past, present and yet-to-be-born. Quoting the Scriptures, Abbott said of these men, "their seed shall remain forever". That has happened but their legacy is peace, not violence.
The harmony now radiating from the Gallipoli Peninsula is founded on a deep Anzac-Turkey reconciliation, a theme expounded by both Abbott and Key.
In recent years, the number of Turkish monuments on the peninsula has grown in numbers and size. Turkey, after all, won this campaign. And the Turks talk more and more of this victory.
For this writer, the contrast between the 75th anniversary in 1990, when Bob Hawke visited, and the centenary event this past weekend is stark.
Few people were coming to the peninsula in the 1980s, though the cycle of interest was about to turn. Walking to the dawn service that year we had to hang onto one another to ensure nobody was lost in the dark.
Yet this time it was a ticketed event. Temporary stands were erected in both locations. Giant video screens duplicated the impression of a mega-event. Powerful lights lit up the cliffs. The sound effects meant the lapping of waves on the sand was transmitted to the audience.
New roads and retaining walls constructed since 1990 have altered and diminished the site, though such progress is required to cater for visitors.
As Abbott began his speech, a long line of warships was seen moving across the Aegean. The number of guests hit capacity but security precautions meant the expedition is more testing than ever.
The dawn service began at 5.30am, an hour after the first boats hit the beaches a century earlier. Nothing matches the thrill yet tranquillity of Anzac Cove at dawn on Anzac Day. The crowd is united in shared sentiment - to honour family history, salute their nation and participate in the latest evolution of the Anzac story. At the ceremony's start, a Turkish officer recited again the inspiring words provided in 1934 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Talking to grieving Australian mothers, he said: your sons having died here "have become our sons as well".
Leaving for the service the night before, I spoke to a woman who had a photograph of a soldier, her relative, around her neck. "That's James Martin," she told me. "He was the youngest Anzac, just 14 years and nine months."
He died on the hospital ship.
It was her first trip to Gallipoli. I imagine it will not be the last for her family. The human bonds that constitute Gallipoli are unbreakable.
Abbott's message is true. Anzac cannot be static. It cannot just be about the past. The story's spiritual dimension is about a stronger and better Australia inspired by the greatness and smallness of what these men did on this shore.
