At embarkation confusion reigned but all eventually sorted – originally Neil’s card said Ian – thought I had gathered a new partner. Room nice, shampoo/soap poor quality, food not much choice for a grain/sugar/dairy free body. I pretended I wasn’t that person and indulged making what I thought were ‘good’ choices leaving out most obvious grains but not enough and am now suffering – on the mend hopefully all good by 06 May when we start the Camino. Wifi on the cruise is very expensive and very poor quality. Staff service is overall good, in particular in the Aroma Coffee Bar and our room attendant who made funny towel animals for us.
Instanbul what an amazing, stimulating city – population almost the same as Australia. Asia meets Europe. We did an exploratory walk from the port upon berthing and we did a bus tour of the old city on 20 April and visited Blue Mosque (amazing place of adoration – would love to be present when full and at prayer time), Cistern Basilica, Topkapi Palace, Grand Bazaar (unfortunately our visit was restricted to just 45 mins, only time for a quick look really) – all amazing structures and places. We also went to a rug making demonstration with the obvious intention of us buying rugs. At the beginning of 208 days not practical.
The night of 20 April we sailed for Canakkale where we were berthed until the night of 25 April.
The Gallipoli experience was dampened by the volume of people both from our Tour boat (1600) and the general presence for the 100 year anniversary for both ANZAC’s and Turks. We need to return to get an individual experience.
In saying that we did tours for 3 days covering most of the main battle scenes and memorials with our hosts Australian Military History Tours (AMHT). Some of the historians very knowledgeable and good communicators, some should never be put in front of an audience. Shell's grandfather fought in the ANZAC force (though I don’t know the particulars) – I never met him but certainly felt him with me on this part of the tour. Interestingly at Lone Pine we found a grave in the name of R Dougherty Reg No. 1522 of the 3rd Battalion passed away on 7-12 August 1915, grandpa’s Reg No. 1512 and he was with the 3rd Battalion – high probability that he was in this battle – I certainly felt him there then. Will have to try and track down when we get home or maybe to some decent wifi.
Neil liked to be able to get a feel for the physical presence of the 2 sides in the campaign and be able to visualise/relate the terrain to the various reference materials read over time. He got a better understanding of why there was such a concentration of so many casualties in such a small area – most of the beach were directly overlooked by ridges allowing the Turks to see our every move. It was evident why the Turks fought so hard to hold the ‘critical ground’ - vital for them to not lose this. A key outcome of this visit was the development of an acknowledgement by both combatants of the tenacity of each to fight for what each was tasked to achieve.
For me, Shell, it was confusing why ANZAC’s were over here, so far from home and for what reason? Our shores were not under threat? why the opposing trenches were 8 metres apart, sometimes they threw bombs at each other, sometimes they shared food and cigarettes. To me this doesn’t make sense.
Anzac Day.Initially the AMHT group promised seating at Gallipoli, then the ballot stopped that. There was major conflict between the leader Paul Murphy and Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) and in any communication with us Paul was very unprofessional and instead of saying this is what is, whinged that it was DVA’s fault for whatever was happening in relation to attendance at the Government Official Service. AMHT provided an alternative service at Gelibalou for the remainder of the ship, where the surf boat rowers arrived and the Barker College Choir and Band performed – though we have heard nothing about this. There were 300-400 or so of us that attended the Official Service at North Beach. Wow what a long day. We boarded the bus at 7pm on 24/04 to drive out of the Port security area about 50 yards to wait for the ferry. Lots of whinges and people who thought that needed to take control – very annoying. Unfortunately though the AMHT guy was good at logistically organising us to such a major event he was not very good at communicating what was happening causing some angst in some of our members.
We boarded the ferry at 10pm. Things were pretty smooth from here. There were 3 security check points on the peninsular with only one way in and one way out – the first was approximately half hour travel North of Eceabat (where we crossed the Dardanelles from Canakkale) only to find that the second check point required us to retrace our path for 20 minutes back toward Eceabat. Check Point One-- we got a bus number, bag tags reflecting this number, our pass and passport checked and issued with a wrist band. Check Point Two-checked we all had the tags. Check Point Three- was Mimosa Park where DVA had a holding area set up with some vendors and tables and chairs and hammocks – here our gear and passes were scanned. Eventually at 2.30am we arrived at North Beach for the ceremony –no sitting space available but luckily we got a spot against a fence on a walkway and could see out over the cove and most of what was happening. Atmosphere amazing – 10,000 people squeezed into a very small space.
Shell stood proudly with grandpa’s medals and his original dog tags trying to understand why he had to endure what he did. He changed his name to enable to fight for his country (his name too german to sign up with). He was injured several times in this area and on the western front and went AWOL a few times as well which doesn’t surprise me when we have seen what they were faced with.
At 7am we moved onto Lone Pine – a 3+km walk up a steep incline – of course Neil raced to the top, I stopped a few times of course to admire the view. Lone Pine Service was great. Prince Charles & Harry attended this service as well and spent quite some time chatting to the crowd. Ceremony beautiful.
The wait. The Gallipoli Peninsula has very narrow roads which do not allow 2 large buses to pass so the roads were all one way for the day. The Turkish Gendarma were in charge of the transport movements of 303 buses. There were 4 major Memorial Services on the day, Gallipoli, Lone Pine, Turkish 57th Regiment and Chanuk Bair and we had to wait until the last service was completed at 2.30pm for any movement of buses (not sure this was the correct decision). We left the Lone Pine area at 8pm. During the wait time there were a minority of our travellers who did not display or embrace the ANZAC spirit. For them it was all about self and not about what we were there for. Some were most insistent that they would be able to force our reps to change the order of the buses because our boat had to sail, I couldn’t help but share my point of view that if I was O/C Traffic for a major event in Australia and an officious foreign person attempted to get me to change the order of buses I would probably put the requested buses to the end. I was assured that they had fixed it, I couldn’t help but smile when we were the last bus off the peninsula.
There should have been some food vendors there – obviously a fault of DVA or maybe Turkish aren’t very entrepreneurial – there were about 8,000 at Lone Pine from 8am to 8pm and no food vendors and only one coffee vendor who sold chocolate biscuits. We all had packed lunches but they were disgusting and were mostly thrown in the bin. DVA provided blankets and food right at the end.
We arrived back at the boat at 10pm to be serenaded by the Barker College Choir, staff members, and many other passengers; and provided with hot coffee, very emotional and changed the attitude of some. Overall a very enjoyable experience.
We both would like to return at another time, definitely not with such a big group and maybe on our own.
Three days cruising back to Venice and then on to the Camino.
Neil & Shell
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