Following breakfast we roamed the streets for a while. I really like Canakkale, it's so easy in comparison to most of the places we have been - this is probably due to slowly learning that we should attempt to be in the middle of things and that a nice place on the outskirts is actually probably a pain in the butt. Yes Antalya, you were definitely the worst. It's also much, much cooler here, sitting in the mid twenties to early thirties which is enjoyable rather than claustrophobic.
At eleven fifteen we meet our group for the day, hop on a mini bus, drive onto a ferry, and then hang out at a restaurant until the larger group arrives from Istanbul. Lunch is provided for us, the stand out being an amazing white soup which apparently was created with rice, meat, yogurt and mint - it was so strange but ridiculously tasty. We chat with a young Australian woman with Turkish heritage who is over here on a tourist visa but has been working in hostels and getting screwed over. There are two older Australian women sitting with us as well and despite their polite participation in our conversation I can almost hear the eye rolling. All three of them are very nice, and it's nice to be in a room full of native English speaking people for a while. The make up of our tour is as follows: 2 Brit's, 2 Fin's, a handful of Kiwis, and the rest (most of the big bus) are Aussies.
After lunch our bus departs the restaurant and takes us across the peninsula to the Brighton Beach, which of course is where the ANZACs were meant to land and it's easy to see why. The beach is beautiful, gently sloped, with easy access to that crucial second ridge. Our guide gives us a detailed history sing the map at the beach. It's very interesting and throughout the day I become increasingly impressed with the young mans ability to both be sensitive to all of the involved parties but also to give us a good sense of the Turkish history at the same time. I feel like the Turkish side is never discussed at home, that they are another group of faceless baddies, but what we learn feels like another piece of the puzzle and helps us understand the situation a little better.
During the day we visit half a dozen cemetaries, Australian, Kiwi, and Turk. Seeing the rows and rows (and rows and rows and rows) of plaques, some for soldiers buried there and others for soldiers believed to be buried somewhere nearby, is incredibly moving. The plaques are mostly much the same, the soldiers rank, name, contingent, sometimes a message from their family or quotation, and about one in four lists their age. 20, 23, 21, 18, on and on down the rows. Few are as old as Willy and most are younger than me. The most extreme ages listed for Commonwealth countries are a man in his fifties and a boy of not yet fifteen. It would be heartbreaking even if there was just a single grave, but the sheer scale is overwhelming. When we visit one of the Turkish cemetaries we learn something interesting. During WW1 the Turks were not yet using surnames, instead going by their fathers name then their name. This means that while we can look up the name of a relative killed in Gallipoli, find out where they are buried and make our way there to pay our respects, the families of those killed on the opposite side do not have that same opportunity. It also appears that many (not all by any stretch) of the ANZAC soldiers were buried in these plots, however the Turkish graveyards are virtually empty with most of their men being buried in the valleys that cover the peninsula. In fact the Turkish cemetery that we visited contained just one body despite the many plaques. There are a number of Turkish flags fluttering above the trees in many locations throughout the battlefield, these, we are told, mark the sites of known mass graves.
Of course there are Kiwis and Australians buried all over as well, and during a stop at some of the trenches we were cautioned that many soldiers were buried within them. Our guide even mentioned that a colleague of his had discovered a bone just a few weeks before. It's quite strange to walk through the trenches, and it's even stranger to see how close the trenches of the two sides actually were - there's just room for the road to squeeze in between them. We hear about the truce to bury the dead, because in mid summer with the bodies are piling up, high temperatures and flies, something needed to be done.
We visit ANZAC Cove with its steep cliffs and North Beach where they later landed. We see the site where 10,000 guests were crammed for this years ANZAC service - it's the size of a handkerchief. We visit the Australian Memorial which is located at Lone Pine (a battlefield turned cemetery) and we finish up at the New Zealand Memorial on top of Chunuk Bair - which was the main objective and we succeeded in capturing before being pushed back to our trenches a couple of days later.
Our guide gives wonderful insight into missed opportunities, tragedy, history from both sides, and why he is thankful that the Gallipoli Campaign took place despite the massive, needless, loss of life. I had no idea that Gallipoli was the Ottoman Empires one victory in the entirety of WW1, I also had no idea that without it Turkey's civil war may have never taken place, and that their history could be very different now. I had never stopped to think about how different everything could be if Turkey had lost at Gallipoli...
After a very busy day, full of information and emotion, we drive back to the restaurant, change vehicles, and head back to Canakkale on the ferry.
We get back to the hotel, change, and head to dinner. Willy is unimpressed by my "restaurant" of choice but my Turkish Ravioli is really tasty. He gets to choose tomorrow. We grab a beer and return to our hotel to watch cartoons - we are such party animals.
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