Standing back to back, like soldiers with bowed heads, two massive slabs of concrete have taken position and stand sentry as Te Kauwhata's memorial.
The curved slabs tower more than 3 metres high.
This included 12 months of work to fundraise the required $75,000, enlisting the help of an art student to design the memorial and acquiring five 10 tonne slabs of concrete rejected from the Auckland motorway tunnel.
The centre piece - the two sentries - represent the two Anzac nations and on each face are silhouetted soldiers looking north and south.
One of the girls who was an adult student, came up with this structure of the Anzac spirit with the two countries leaning against each other.
Three more segments lay on their edge.
The two outer panels hold the words 'Lest We Forget' and the te reo Maori equivalent, Kei wareware taatou, while the names of the fallen soldiers from the Te Kauwhata district take pride of place on the centre panel.
The cost to design and build from scratch was too expensive so the Waterview tunnel project in West Auckland was called for help. The segments were supplied at no cost because they were rejects and were transported down to Te Kauwhata.
The original design called for two segments but members of the Lions Club of Te Kauwhata and Districts decided to think big.
They came up with the idea of saying, why don't we get five tunnel segments, put the two up like that and expand on what we had to make a nice memorial.
The grey segments arrived with holes for the construction. They were filled and the slabs plastered and splashed with paint to give them a marble effect.
Members of the community and local businesses pitched in with labour, stone chip and ready lawn for the memorial which sits next to the playground and the Te Kauwhata train station.
The soldiers' memorial was dedicated in a ceremony on Saturday 11th April 2015 at 2pm
A nice spot to enjoy a break while the kids play on the playground.