dear all,
I managed to quickly upload the gallipoli photos, but ran out of time to squeeze in a story.
Gallipoli was amazing. We were picked up at 6 am a little bleary eyed, and 6 aussies including us made our 4 hour journey to gallipoli peninsula in the mini bus.
Stopped for early lunch before heading out the peninsula. The tour we booked was with a guide, so he explained alot on our through the tour.
We started at the beginning of the campaign in Anzac Cove. It was horrible to see how purely unlucky the aussies were when the landed on the wrong beach.even if the directions werent the best, 500 metres either direction from Anzac cove and things could have been totally different for the aussies. The view from anzac cove would have been extremely daunting for the aussies, its sheer cliffs, dense undergrowth in places and bare rocks in others. I cant imagine how tough it would have in the middle of the night to arrive wet and then have to dig in under turkish fire.
From the cove we take the route up to chunuk bair, which goes along past several turkish monuments, lookouts and the turkish memorial. The turkish memorial was interesting, on one plaque it was translated that the turkish soldiers were "outnumbered 20:1"..which was not the case for the turkish soldiers but was for the aussies...mmm..taken their creative licence a little far i think. But still we paid our respects to all side of the war.Chunuk Bair, is the highest point on the peninsula which can see out into the sea of marmara and down the other side into the dardenelles. Standing there i could understand why both sides were fighting for the lookout to be able to keep an eye on what was coming in and then possibly onto istanbul and then the black sea and Russia.
The lone pine memorial is fairly high up and the view over the dardanells was beautiful.it was an amazing moment to be able to stand where they had fought for us and say thankyou.
It was a long day,with a 4 hour journey back to istanbul, but definately an amazing day worth every minute in the bus.
jxo
