Thu, 24 Apr 2003

author Liz	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 19:30 BST 07/05/03	section Europe2002/Asia/Turkey ( all photos )

So Sick Before ANZAC Day ( 29 photos )
On Thursday the 24th of April, Tim and I dragged ourselves out of bed and onto the bus. Because of the food poisoning, we had not had much sleep the night before, so we spent a few hours asleep on the bus that morning as we drove towards Gallipoli. The drive took 3 or 4 hours, and we had a couple of stops along the way at service stations.
When we arrived at the Gallipoli Penninsula, we could already see that security was tight, even though we were still about 20 minutes drive from Anzac Cove. They had a lot of police and army personnel, and there were checkpoints everywhere we drove.
We drove around the Gallipoli Penninsula, and were shown the beach where the Anzac's were supposed to have landed. There is an unconfirmed story that the allies had a buoy near this beach as a marker to show the soldiers where to come ashore. The Turks discovered this buoy and cut it loose so that it drifted along the coast to the spot where the Anzac's did land - a tiny beach with no protection, but cliffs looming overhead where the Turk's were lying in wait for them.
It was so hard to look at the very beautiful Anzac Cove and imagine the horror that so many men suffered here.
We left Anzac Cove and headed up to the Lone Pine Memorial, which is the Australian memorial cemetary. We had a short while looking around up there, but would have more time on Anzac Day for a good look around.
Back on the bus, we drove to Eceabat, about 20 minutes away, and then we boarded a ferry for a cruise all around the Gallipoli Penninsula. The cruise went on for more than two hours, and as we didn't know what areas of land we were seeing, plus the fact that a lot of us weren't feeling the best, it wasn't the best part of the tour. We would have preferred to spent that afternoon exploring Gallipoli some more.
Once the ferry docked, we got off and had a barbeque nearby. Tim and I sat on the beach for an hour watching the sun setting over the water and then we went and had some food from the barbeque.
By now it was about 10pm and dark, so we headed back to our bus which was parked near the barbeque area.
The bus was supposed to drive straight to Anzac Cove and drop us off, but long before we reached there, we were refused entry by a group of soldiers. It turned out that they weren't letting any buses through certain roads, so to get anywhere near Anzac Cove, we had to drive all the way around the Penninsula which took close to an hour.
When the bus stopped, we got off and walked the rest of the way, which was only about 500 meters. We found a patch of grass on the hill, and settled down for the night. Most of us were worn out from being sick, but it was very cold and windy, so getting any sleep was a challenge.

(Continued 08:35, 18/05/03, from Saltney, Chester, Cheshire, England, by Liz)
They had music playing for most of the night, so every now and then people would start singing along to 'I am Australian' and things like that.

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