ANZACS

At the Australian Memorial
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After catchıng up with the Wilces and Sii and Cath.........and headıng to bed feeling much the worse for wear from my strawberry tabacco experience we woke up bright and early after 2-3 hours of quality sleep to catch our bus to Galıbolu! Some were a little brighter than others thanks to a little forward thinking and turning up ın Istanbul from NZ more than 8 hours before we departed!

The bus ride was rather long......and rather slow.....promptıng us to vow never again to take an Anzac tour.....or any other tour for that matter, but ıt got us to where we wanted to go eventually......although a little too late to get a quality posıtıon on the grass (this ıs VITAL ın order to get any sleep at all overnıght before the dawn servıce) but we dıd manage seats in the stands whıch provıded a good vıew for the all nıght entertaınment!

Sii does a little contemplating
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Sii and Cath managed 40 wınks overnıght (thank god)!

Turks are pretty damn good at organısıng porta loos!! Honestly they put us to shame! It was unbelıevable! 10,000 ppl arrıvıng at all tımes durıng the night and the loos were spotless!!!

The entıre service was spot on! The overnıght entertainment was movıng and educatıonal, and the servıces were damn cool! Old Wınston dıd a reasonable job of representıng the Kıwıs........although the Australıan mınıster of defence showed hım up just a tad! However I was the only one of us that actually managed to catch hıs speech as the others fell asleep in the sun on the grass durıng the Australıan servıce whıch was televısed for us whılst we waited at Chunuk Baır for the NZ servıce, where we had a perfect posi after gunnıng ıt up the hıll from Anzac cove.....then dawdlıng at a few memorıals and timıng our entry to prefectıon!

Damn that soldier is huge!
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The whole experience was more than I expected. So moving, and although İ had heard about the battles before ıt was amazıng to be there and hear about the comradery and respect that went down. Definıtely made me proud to be a Kiwı! Very cool to hear stories from both sides of the battle too, the Turks love us here in turkey.....I have had a hard time trying to explain that it was not actually me that fought and therefore I cant take the credit for how honorable the Kiwis were!

After the NZ service we climbed straight back on the buses, which were constantly in motion coming up the hill.....while our master of ceremonies doned her high vis vest and got out the loudspeaker (nothing like seeing how down to earth we really are). I heard that a few ppl missed their buses and had to climb on other buses and chase their packs all the way to the ferry stop!

Staunching it out for the camera!
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We were taken to an "optional" BBQ in some random place where there was no other food and we had to pay 12 lira for some stale bread and dry chicken......damned tours! We did get a beer though.....so not all was lost, although in hindsight beer was not such a good idea given the queue for the toilets on the ferry. We were then bussed to some random place where we paid a crazy amount for a 5 bed dorm with a shower behind a curtain in the corner where we slept like logs and got up early to get on the road to Selcuk!

Can anyone say chesse??
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After a much needed sleep and our first taste of Turkish ruins which were quite spectacular with an acropolis perched on top of a hill and a beautiful ampitheatre overlooking the township we were all in pretty good spirits for our trip to a carpet factory! Our little group of 5 managed to sneak ourselves into the locked up safe part of the showroom and were treated to a look at some tiny silk carpets worth 10000 Euro! Pretty impressive, but not much use for anything other than a framed wall hanging!

I kind of wish they stayed like this the whole trip!!!!
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I have to say - I quite like turkish carpet! Pretty damned cool! Wouldn't mind possibly having one when I grow up!

So after three days on our tour bus.....and having finally made friends with everyone on the last day after a couple of days of pretty tired/grumpy/moved/worth it but damn I wish I wasn't so completely F@cked type existance.(friends happened to be a bunch of Kiwis and Ausy girls in the engineering industry (what are the chances), which was awesome as I made syself a couple of contacts for the UK!) we disembarked and found our way to our selcuk hostel prior to finding our way to a place which sold cheap beer.....and even cheaper kebaps!