GALLIPOLI

Wednesday

Day 97

Gallipoli. TURKEY

We spent the day there today. We were picked up at 6.30am and lunched at a gorgeous place before we got to Gallipoli, which took about five and a half hours from Istanbul by bus.

We went to Brighton Beach where the Anzacs were ment to land on April 25th 1915 and then to Anzac Cove, where they did land and lost so many lives...we went to the trenches, atop Ari Burnu on the coves of the headland, both the Anzac trenches and the Turkish trenches, some only across the road from one another.

Visited Hell Spit, the southern part of Anzac Cove, Lone Pine, The Nek and finally Shell Green, the small area where they played cricket admist Turkish fire and sometimes together..

It was amazing looking over the Aegean Sea knowing 1600 men died there each day...so long ago. 92 years ago..yet the Anzac Spirit still lives.

We also cried tears at the cemeteries and listened to the stories of that day. The day so many young men died. And for what reason? It really made it very real. A time in history brought alive by just simply being on the same soil. I thought of Grandpop and my great uncles all day and now we're exhausted!

The one thing i really noticed about the Anzacs and the Turks are that they all really just wanted to get the job done. There was a lot of human spirit involved in this campaign. At times they even swapped turkish cigarettes for bully beef, throwing it to each other only metres away where each had their trenches and dugoiuts. But when they had to fight, they did. But i'm sure all those thousands of young men really didn't want to kill each other. Over 130,000 died in the Gallipoli Campaign. And over 500,000 in WW1. The loss of life was massive.

It seems Lord Kissenger and Winston Churchill had more influence than we'd realised..

There was also an interesting story about Turkish General Mastafi. Where he was actually shot above the heart, but was saved by his pocket chain watch that collected the shrapnel.

So many stories..

We took heaps of pictures.

I'll tell you more about what happened later, we're in Canakkale now, staying here for the night with a group of other people staying here. A movie is on based on Les Carlyon's book...And soon..we're watching the movie Galipolli with Mel Gibson in a minute..and my time on the computer is up!!

So...time to go...at have our black turkish coffee and fresh turkish delight..

I do have to say..it was an emotional and poignant day..to say the least...

To TROY tomorrow, home of the Trojun horse and Helen of Troy..then to Istanbul tomorrow..then to the UK. We will hopefully get more time to write then!!

xx