The adventures of Trent

25.04.06 ANZAC Day 2006 Gallopili, Turkey

Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives……
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country
Therefore rest in peace
There is no difference between the Johnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours……
You, the mothers
Who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears,
Your sons are lying in our bosom
And are in peace
After having lost their lives on this land
They have become our sons as well
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1934)

ANZAC Day 2006 was and will always be an ANZAC Day to remember. This year I achieved one of my life goals, ANZAC Day at ANZAC Cove in Gallipoli, Turkey, the place where it all happened.

With Matt over here, we decided ages ago that this ANZAC day was one that we had to make the journey that alot of Australians do in Europe, which is to go to the place where the ANZAC legend was created. So on Sunday April 23rd we began our journey to Turkey and ultimately Gallipoli.

After spending a night in Istanbul we made our way to the meeting point at 7am Monday morning to board a our tour bus for the trip to Gallipoli. After a pretty long bus ride to Gallipoli, we began our tour by visiting the War museum. For some reason, every other tour bus decided to visit the museum at the same time as we did. So after we listened to a pretty quick story from our tour guide (which we later read on a wall) we took a few photos then stood in line to enter this museum.

But this was the beginning of what was going to be an unforgettable 24 hours. After the museum we headed to where it all happened, Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair. These two places are the Australian and New Zealand war memorials and the exact places where Australia and New Zealand had the majority of their casualities.


Man what a place. At Lone Pine alone lay more than 3000 Australian, New Zealand, Brittish and Turkish soldiers. The reason why it is named lone pine is depicted in this photo. One Lone Pine Tree stands at the middle of this cemetry. Right in the middle of where the ANZAC and Turkish trenches were, no more than 100 metres apart. It was kind of hard to fathem actually being at this place during the war where they stood and fought no more than 100 metres away from each other.

One our way from Lone Pine to Chunuk Bair, me and matt managed to come across a number of trenches and dug outs just off the side of the road. To start with it didn’t look like much, but then we just ran through all the bushes following the trenches and they just kept going for ages. Below is a photo of one of the trenches we came across. On the one hand very cool, but on the other, could not imagine spending 8 months running around in these small, skinny and shallow trenches while trying to shoot at people and avoid being shot at the same time…….

After checking out Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair, where the two ceremonies would happen on ANZAC day, we headed to ANZAC Cove, where we were to spend the night out, in preparation for the Dawn Service. Sleeping on ANZAC Cove was an experience in itself. It went from a nice and hot day, to a spectacular sun set, to one bloody cold and windy night.

Lying, freezing cold at ANZAC Cove was alot to take in. Initially it was too surreal, thinking that where we were lying , 91 years ago, the whole ANZAC campaign all began. But as the night went on, it started to feel real, which was very cool. Duing the night, on every hour they played a short documentary about ANZAC day and WW1. And in between, we had to entertain ourselves. Alot of the time we just sat around, talked crap with the people around us, and kept warm with tea, coffee and a sleeping bag.

At 4:30am me and matt decided that we would move from where we were lying to get a better place to actually see the dawn service. I think we moved just a bit too soon, as the service didn’t begin till 5:30am (which we would have known if we read the program) but what can you do. But standing there at 4:30am, the exact time when the ANZACs landed at ANZAC Cove, looking out at the water and then back at the huge cliffs behind us, man, the feeling I just can’t describe with words. At exactly 5:30am the service began. The entire cove fell silent, except for the sound of birds.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the vocabulary to adequately describe the service. All I can say is that it is something that you must experience. It was an extremely humbling experience and really hit home to how valuable life actually is and how easily it can be taken away.

So after the dawn service we made our way back to our tour bus to make the journey up the cliffs to the Australian service at Lone Pine. One the way we had a chance to get 10 minutes sleep, to add onto the 30minutes we got the night before. So you can imagine how exhausted and delirious we were at this point.

The Australian service was typically Australian. There was this pre-service entertainment guy, Warren someone, who was bloody hilarious. Before the service started he just went through some house keeping rules, explained a bit about Lone Pine and even managed to take the piss out of the New Zealanders…….bloody top bloke hey.

These 3 photos are pretty much what happened. To start with the lone solder with the Australian flag took position in front of the memorial before the MC began the service. The second photo is of the wreath laying part of the ceremony and the last photo is the last post………thats the point where ANZAC day really hit me, the last post.

So after the service at Lone Pine, we were to walk further up the hill to Chunuk Bair to see the New Zealand Ceremony. But we decided that on the way we would do a bit of site seeing and check out the many war cemetries that are scattered all over gallopoli. The first one had a sign pointing down a hill saying 200 metres, so we thought, 200 metres, not that far away, might as well check it out. But I really think the turkish interpretation of 200 metres, is quite different to the Australian interpretation. But the “200 metre” treck was worth it. We came across this cemetry on the side of a mountain that stood beside a amazing view back down the cliffs towards ANZAC Cove.

The photo of me and matt was was taken on the top of this ridge after we followed some tracks that went behind the cemetry to this ridge. Beyond the ridge and continuing up and down the cliffs, there were also tracks. But we were so not going to follow it as we wanted to avoid getting lost at Gallopoli but these other dick heads that were up there before us, just kept walking. We just waved good luck to them and didn’t see them again. Hopefully they made it back…..;) i’m sure they did……

So we climbed back up the “200 metres” of stairs to continue our trip towards Chunuk Bair the the New Zealand ceremony. But between Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair there is a Turkish memorial. And it happened to be finishing as we, and majority of other people from the Australian ceremony were walking by. And along the side of the road, for what seemed like a good 500 metres, were 1000’s of schools kids all wearing the same school uniform, all wearing the same turkish hat thing, and the majority of them were waiving these huge turkish flags right in our faces and yelling out shit to us in turkish. It was quite an intimidating walk through these kids and we had no idea what they were saying about us and we just couldn’t do anything, because there were cops everywhere as well.

Anyway, we kept walking and eventually made it up the hill to Chunuk Bair, in which instead of trying to cram into the small New Zealand Ceremony, we decided to fall asleep in the sun and add to the total of 40 minutes that we had slept. Was a bright idea to start off with, except we managed to get burnt big style which gave us both big red heads.

So that was ANZAC Day 2006 in Gallipoli, Turkey. A very moving and humbling day that I will never forget.

Cheers

posted by Trent @ 2:10 PM