The Long Journey Home

Another day in Instanbul before we started our three day ANZAC Day Tour. This was one of the things on our trip that I was looking forward to the most.

So on the bus we get and we head straight for Gallipoli Pennisula to visit the memorials and cemetaries before the Dawn Service the following day. It was great to visit the site before the masses arrived the following day and to hear some of the stories of the events that occurred during the landing and the 9 months that followed.

So the next day it was time to rug up and head for the dawn service. Our tour bus didn’t arrive at the site until about 11pm and by that stage the place was absolutley packed. We were actually lucky to get a seat. Most of the people around us had been sitting there since 5pm.

I think it was a blessing that we got to our seats quite late beacuse it was absolutley freezing!! The wind was howling through the cove and it was a pretty funny sight to see 10,000 people covered head to toe in their sleeping bags.

After the dawn service and the Australian service at Lone Pine we headed back to Cannakale for some much needed rest. However we ran into some people we had met along the way and a Two Up game was proposed so it was off to the pub. We got the Turkish guy working at the bar to do the toss and eventually more people joined in as the afternoon went on.

That night it was on the bus to head to Selcuk.