Fri, 25 Apr 2003

author Liz	location Saltney, Chester, Cheshire, England
posted 08:35 BST, 18/05/03	section Europe2002/Asia/Turkey ( all photos )

ANZAC Day Proper ( 40 photos )
At about 4am on Friday 25th April, an Aussie singer (never heard of him and unfortunately cannot remember his name) got up on the stage and he spent the next hour or so telling stories of the brave Anzac's at Gallipoli, and we all sang along to Waltzing Matilda. It was a nice start to the morning.
Next, we heard the Band of the Royal Military College of Australia (they were fantastic), and then the Dawn Service began.
It was freezing cold, but it felt so awesome to stand and look at the Australian flag as the light slowly crept into the sky. Tim and I stood for the whole service, and even though we could see the flag poles with Australian, New Zealand and Turkish flags on them, we couldn't quite see the stage. There was a huge screen not far from us, so we watched the ceremony on that and we could see what was going on quite well.
At the end of the service, the band played all three national anthems, and Advance Australia Fair was sung loudest of all - I felt so proud of myself and all the other young (and old!) Aussie's and Kiwi's that had made it to Gallipoli. Numbers were apparently about half compared to last year, but there was still a huge crowd there.
After the Dawn Service finished, we quickly packed up our belongings and then headed up to Lone Pine.
It's about a 2km walk, a lot of which is up a very steep and winding dirt track, and even though the Australian Memorial Service wasn't starting for another three hours or so, we wanted to get a good spot, so we hurried as much as our cold sick bodies would let us! I don't think I have ever had such cold feet before - it was like dragging around a couple of blocks of ice attached to the end of my legs, but the walking soon warmed me up.
We were glad that we hurried, because we found a great spot to sit - close to the ceremonial area, and in the sun but out of the wind. I have no idea where they would have put everyone if more people had actually come, because within an hour, the whole cemetery was packed out. They had huge stands all around the edge, and they were all filled up too.
As Tim and I sat in the sun, we kept dozing off, and our beanie covered heads would bump into each other, waking us up to do it all again. It must have looked hilarious.
At 10.30am, after more music from the Band of the Royal Military College of Australia (including some very familiar Ed Wilson tunes), some two-up in the crowd and big waves going all around the stands, the Lone Pine Service began.
I can honestly say that this was one of the most moving events I have ever been to. The speeches that told of the hardships the Anzac's endured were awe-inspiring, and it was so nice to sing along to the hymns rather than playing them this year. It was such a special ceremony and Tim and I were so proud to be there. The site of the Lone Pine memorial is where a large number of men were killed, and it was a very emotional morning for a lot of people.
Again we all sang Advance Australia Fair, and it was great to hear so many young Aussie's showing their support and recognition of the Anzac's.
Afterwards we walked around and looked at many of the gravestones - so many of those poor men were so young - younger than me at 23. Our night in the cold was nothing compared to what they went through.
We also went and walked around some of the other nearby cemeteries. Huge numbers of the gravestones say 'believed to have fallen here' or similar. There were so many people killed that there wasn't time to bury them all. A lot of the dates of death are also unknown. It really hits home how horrific the whole situation was when you start walking around the cemeteries.
We had a look at some of the old trenches which was really interesting. They have become quite eroded over the years, but we could still see them quite well. In some areas, the Anzac and Turkish trenches were only a meter apart, so they used to throw food and cigarettes to each other before resuming the fighting. And here's a pretty Australian-type thing to do: When the Anzac's were leaving Gallipoli, a few of them left a table set with dinner for the Turks to find and enjoy. How nice is that!
We had a long wait for the New Zealand service to finish before the bus picked us up. In the meantime, six jet planes did a fly-over to commemorate the Anzac's.
Once we were back on the bus, we drove to Eceabat to catch another ferry - this time across the Dardanelles to ‚anakkale. This ferry trip was much quicker, and after about 20 minutes we got off the boat and the bus headed south along the coast.
Everyone was tired out, partly from being sick, and partly from lack of sleep, so the whole bus was asleep for the three hour drive. At least, we would have slept all the way, except that as we were passing through a small town, one of the wheel suddenly started making a weird noise. The bus was stopped, and we discovered that of the twelve wheel nuts that were supposed to be holding the wheel on, only three nuts remained! It was going to take an hour or two to fix, but luckily they managed to squeeze us a few at a time on other buses from our tour company as they went by. We had already been dubbed the 'food poisoning bus' by the other groups, so now they thought it was even funnier that we had had more troubles on Bus Number 5.
We reached the town where our hotel was, Ayvalik, and drove up to our hotel, which turned out to be a beautiful resort right on the coast!
Our bags were still on our bus (which didn't make it to the hotel for another five hours), but there was shampoo and soap in our rooms, so at least we could have a hot shower.
Dinner was a buffet, Turkish style, and after that we dragged ourselves to bed!

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