Anzac Day in Gallipoli

So it’s been a while since I have sent one of my blogs out. But you know how it goes, when you go back home on holiday to Australia there is little time to sit and write about Turkey! So, apologies for the hiatus people, but I’m back.  

Yes, back in Turkey and now back online to kick off my blog in 2014!! So welcome back...

With Anzac Day coming up this month I thought what better subject to write about than my experience in Gallipoli for Anzac Day, 1999!

I was invited to go along to the Anzac Day service in Turkey and to be honest, Turkey had never hit my radar for a holiday destination, but I was really keen to get the chance to be at Gallipoli for an Anzac Day service. This ended up being my first introduction to Turkey and a lifetime experience I will never forget.

The year that I went to Gallipoli was the last year they held the dawn service ceremony down in the gravesite at Anzac Cove. The gravesite sits almost on top of the beach where our troops landed many years before, so really a perfect location to commemorate what happened here. The following year the combined governments changed a few things for Anzac Day for future years. They decided to build an out door amphitheater across the road from the gravesite to support the crowds that were growing in numbers and they also banned alcohol for the dawn service and the duration of Anzac Day out on the peninsula.

I’m not sure what some peoples agendas are when they head to Anzac Day, but when I attended Gallipoli back in ’99, I felt that the lack of respect that was shown, by many, whilst standing in a gravesite of our fallen soldiers was abysmal. Not only where we all squashing in and around the gravesites of these fallen soldiers for the ceremony, but the site was also scattered with empty beer cans. Now I know it's in the true Aussie spirit to have a beer or two on Anzac Day, BUT on the graves of our fallen soldiers, I think not! So I am thankful that the governments saw sense to this and now this kind of behavior is no longer accepted.

Anzac Cove is a very beautiful spot that has quite an eerie feeling to it. The ceremony itself was very moving and a moment when I really felt proud of my nation and where I came from. I am a skeptic and always have been when ever I have heard people talking of believing in ghosts, I laugh! However, that morning there was something happening in that cove for sure. With the ceremony taking place at one of the graveyard, the ocean is out on my left and the impossible cliff tops stretching up in the shadows on my right, I got a sense of how forbidding the Anzacs landing was, even before the sun had risen to give me a clear picture. As I kept my attention to the ceremony on stage there was an ever-present feeling of ships out on the ocean and small boats coming in for the landing. No matter how many times I looked to be sure I was not seeing things, I felt like I could sense there was something there and kept seeing shadows. I swore I looked ten times or more. When the sun did rise and I finally got to see what our soldiers faced those many years ago, I can only hold those poor fellows in higher esteem. 

The day continued onto the Australian ceremony at Lone Pine and by late morning, the day is really done and we headed back to our hotel. This was when we truly started the Aussie style celebrations, with a BBQ and a few cold ones to see out the day.

The day before Anzac Day we had done a tour out to all the gravesites memorials and monuments for Australians, New Zealanders and the Turkish. We also visited some of the trenches that still remain from the war and the museum show casing some of the war artifacts that they are still finding to date. We got the chance to stand in the trenches and you get to see just how close these men were fighting one another. So close in fact, there is a display in the museum of two bullets fused together, as they were fired at such close range. We were also told of stories of enormous heroic efforts, stories of mate ship and immense bravery of all the nations. Even stale mates where the men took the chance to swap cigarettes for food and its even been said that they were all playing a match of cricket at one cease fire period.

I am thankful to not have experienced a war in my own lifetime, too close to home. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard life must have been for these soldiers. Nor begin to imagine what it must have been like to farewell a loved one to only not see them come home. When you leave Anzac Cove, there is a very emotional and touching statement made by the man who won this peninsula for the Turks, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He later went onto be the first President of Turkey and totally reformed the country. His words on this plaque are a beautiful sentiment that binds our countries together, in some ways forever.

As for this being my first experience in Turkey. Well I came blind sited. I remember feeling so culture shocked in my first few days in Istanbul before we headed down to the Gallipoli peninsula. It was like nothing I had ever seen, experienced or known in my life. I was only in Turkey for five full days and I knew by day three that I would be coming back. The country had a mystic about it, a mystic that was intriguing and captivating all in one. Coming for an Anzac Day in Gallipoli, even the more special.

For the Aussies and Kiwis out there, for the war buffs or history buffs, truly, make Gallipoli a stop along your travels. For an Anzac Day ceremony or not, you will truly appreciate the experience! 

Anzac Cove. You can see the grave site is literally on the ocean. Can't deny the beauty of the place. 

Lone Pine - the Australian memorial.

The words from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The man who won the Gallipoli campaign for the Turkish, became a war hero then on to become Turkeys first President. 

"The Nek" - this is the view looking up from Anzac Cove. This is what the soldiers had to try and conquer, whilst the Turkish had the best vantage point from above. 

A monument of a Turkish soldier who had run out in the line of fire to carry an injured Aussie soldier over to his own trenches for treatment.