Sail-past of ships ends Anzac anniversary

Exactly 100 years to the day since the first Anzacs set sail from Albany in Western Australia, a handful of naval ships has passed through Ataturk Channel.

They represented the World War I troopships that carried almost 30,000 soldiers on the same route through King George Sound - the last glimpse of home many of them ever saw.

Saturday's commemorations began with a military march through the streets of the Great Southern town, with the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, Tony Abbott and John Key, and Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove among the dignitaries looking on.

Mr Abbott and Mr Key paid tribute to their nations' bond, forged through a baptism of fire that helped create the identities of the young colonies.

"The scale of sacrifice and loss was beyond anything imaginable," Mr Abbott told the gathering.

"61,000 never came home.

"Of those who served overseas, almost one in five died on active service.

"It was sacrifice on a stupendous scale and it was a sacrifice shared by our neighbour New Zealand."

Mr Key said it was the nations' coming of age, which suffered the most of all that took part on the bloody conflict.

"As the New Zealander's vessels met the Australian vessels, the cheering and counter cheering, the Maori war cries and the answering cooees would have moved a stoic," he said.

"Young Australia was welcoming young New Zealand ... in the first meeting of those brothers in arms, soon to be known by a glorious name."

WA Premier Colin Barnett agreed with mayor Dennis Wellington's call that Albany should be the alternative Anzac pilgrimage destination to Gallipoli.

That was not just because of the troop departure but because the town's Padre White held the nation's first dawn service in 1930.

"Not everyone can afford to go to Gallipoli and yet there's so much of the history of the First World War here," Mr Barnett told reporters.

As well as the centennial celebrations on Saturday was the official opening of the National Anzac Centre.

The multimedia museum allows visitors to follow the story of a single soldier, not knowing until they get to the end whether that serviceman survived or not.