Gallipoli

We farewell Istanbul where we will return in a month, and the next morning we head to the Gallipoli Peninsula. Louie was particularly interested in visiting Gallipoli and it was one of the places that he chose to put on the list of destinations.

My own family had very little connection with either of the World Wars and I often wondered why, when other families went to dawn parades, ANZAC day was just a day to spend out sailing. My father who was born in 1923, had grown tomatoes for the war effort, being unable to sign up due to Migraines. I think perhaps if push had come to shove, he would have been a conscientious objector anyway. My mother, who was a child in London during World War II, described the terrible humiliation of being the only child at her school whose father had not gone to war and the alienation she suffered from other children. It is no wonder that the commemoration (not the significance) was slightly lost on us.

Stanley, Roger’s dad, was in the British Royal Navy and sailed submarines during WWII. Perhaps it is this connection to which the kids relate.

However, down and across from Istanbul and arriving on the Peninsula makes us all feel a little reverent and it is hard not to sense the loss of life and the legacy that this place has left in Aotearoa and Australia.

We choose not to continue to Çanakkale where we have a booking, as it involves catching a ferry across the Dardanelles, but instead stay in Eceabat where we are already on the peninsula.

People in Turkey have spoken a lot about a tourist downturn over the last couple of years and it is not until we reach Eceabat that it becomes obvious how empty the place is. We stay at the “Crowded House” hostel that is totally geared towards New Zealanders and Australians but it is anything but crowded.

The Dardanelles are very beautiful and we spend the last part of the daylight down at the wharf watching the boats coming and going, walking around the monuments and watching dolphins out in the water.

I’m not too sure what the plan would have been without a car, but the Gallipoli tour would have been restricted and expensive and this way, we can go wherever we feel like going. The whole place is virtually deserted.

We stop at Lone Pine first, where there is a gentle breeze blowing and it is absolutely silent. As part of an Australian School initiative, hundreds of kids have written little messages on crosses for visitors to place in the ground on any grave they choose.

At Chanuk Bair, further up the road, we arrive at the same time as three bus-loads of Turkish Army recruits. Their main aim seems to be to pose alongside the enormous monument to Atatürk which seems to have slightly overshadowed the New Zealand monument.

It is quite surreal being there with the army and we talk quite a bit about the camaraderie and respect that the Turkish afford the New Zealanders, despite the bloody and relentless war that was fought in this very spot.

It is important to remember in Turkey, how Mustafa Kemal, later given the title Atatürk the father of modern turkey, was such an instrumental figure in the winning of the Gallipoli campaign. His rousing of the troops who had run out of ammunition by the time the ANZACS had taken control of this small but strategic part of the peninsula, was incredibly instrumental in the Turkish soldiers’ last charge, which led to them overcoming the ANZACs.

He went on, of course, to create a modern secular Turkey that, most people who we meet, hold in such high regard.

Our walk at ANZAC Cove, where we walk the full length of the beach and feel happy to be able to stay on after the tour bus which stopped for five minutes and left again, leaves us completely alone on the beach. While it is obviously a popular pastime to search for old shell casings and bullets on the beach, it is quite a shock to spot a two-inch-long bullet sticking out of the bank. Initially I’m relieved that we haven’t found a bullet that was responsible for ending someone’s life. It is completely intact and in surprisingly good condition for something that has sat near the sea for 100 years. Louie is terrible excited and we set about looking for other artefacts. While there are other bits and pieces that are less likely to be from the war, we do find a baby turtle and liberate it in the sea, before realising that perhaps it is a land turtle that made its way to the beach. It seemed reluctant to swim!

As we are farewelling the turtle a couple come around the corner, one is dressed in stubbies and a lemon-squeezer hat and it seems very likely that they are from our side of the world. Tara and Mark have a special connection to Gallipoli. Not only is Mark a keen war historian but his great uncles fought at Gallipoli and he has visited a number of times. They’ve been up in the hills tracing some of the paths that different regiments took as they moved up the hill from the beach. They have found all sorts of treasures and we spent quite some time chatting in the car park and Mark examines our bullet and talks about it’s history.

We organise to meet them later at their guest-house for home-made lemonade and Gin. Their accommodation is obviously a bit more atmospheric and pricey than the Crowded House, as Peter Jackson stays there when he comes to Gallipoli.

We look for a place to swim near ANZAC cove and Tara and Mark recommend a place where the soldiers used to swim.

As the sun is setting we head to the Gallipoli Houses where we spend a lovely evening with our new New Zealand friends, who are the only guests at the guest-house.