It is finally getting closer.
Brisbane mother and daughter Wendy and Lizi Drysdale are among the 3800 Australians (1800 Queenslanders) who will carry the Queens Baton in the Queensland leg to start the 2018 Commonwealth Games next year.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Commonwealth Games Minister Kate Jones will on Wednesday morning congratulate all the Commonwealth Games Queens Baton relay carriers on the Gold Coast.
The Drysdales from Tarragindi were rewarded for their work remembering the Australians captured in Singapore as prisoners of war by the Japanese when WWII finished in 1945.
Wendy Drysdale's father, former Cleveland MP Keith Hooper, was one of the 15,000 Australian prisoners of war, one-third of whom died before the end of the war in various camps.
Together they take groups of veterans and their families to Singapore to place them in the locations where their families fought and, for many, lost their lives.
Like her mother Wendy, Lizi Drysdale, 32, also raises money for medical research for the Lions Club, and represented the Girl Guiding movement at the United Nations' 2011 session on the Rights of Women.
"It's an absolute shock," Lizi Drysdale said the Commonwealth Games' baton recognition.
"I didn't expect it in a million years. This is a real ???in our backyard' experience to have the opportunity to take part in this really global experience."
Wendy Drysdale, who earlier this year was awarded an Order of Australia for her community fundraising work, said she felt very lucky.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me," she said.
"I was lucky enough to get to the opening ceremony at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, so this will be very, very nice.
"It is really quite humbling."
The Drysdales are among thousands honoured by carrying the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games baton in the first three months of 2018.
In Queensland, the 1800 baton bearers will travel to 83 different communities over 33 days in March and April 2018.
Queensland will be the final leg of the international relay which left London's Buckingham Palace in March 2017.
Around Australia, baton relay carriers include some famous faces, in addition to thousands whose names will be known only in their local communities.
The well-known baton carriers include Victoria Cross winners Mark Donaldson from Coffs Harbour and Ben Roberts-Smith from Canberra, Brisbane's "Madame Butterfly" Olympian Susie O'Neil, Tamworth's Troy Casar-Daley, former Bronco Justin Hodges, chef Maggie Beer, cricketer Glenn McGrath, singers Dami Im and John Williamson and the two Brisbane guys who invented the mobile laundry for the homeless; Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett.
Well-known Gold Coast residents at this morning's baton relay bearers announcement include;
- 77-year-old Marie Bennetts OAM, a long-time volunteer at Kurrrawa Surf Life Saving Club and Gold Coast Justice of the Peace;
- 17-year-old Harrison Tippett, a recipient of the Macpherson Community Young Achievers Award and the State Government Citizenship Award;
- Preston Campbell, former Gold Coast Titan, 2001 Dally M winner and 2011 NAIDOC person of the year; and
- Brooke Hanson, youngest member of the 1994 Commonwealth Games swim team in Canada and winner of an Olympic Gold, Olympic Silver and two Commonwealth Silver Medals.
What happens next?
The Queens Baton left London's Buckingham Palace in March 2017 and ios due to arrive in Brisbane on Christmas Eve after winding its way through Europe, the Africas, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and New Zealand.
It begins a month-long trip around Australia's hospitals before beginning its Australian tour in Canberra, making its first public appearance on Australia Day, January 26.
From Canberra, the baton is carried through New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory before making its way to the host state, Queensland in March 2018.
It makes its debut in Queensland up north on Horn Island before winding its way through outback Queensland to arrive at the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on April 4.
