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Day 10 - Going to Gallipoli
We were picked up at 6:30 in the morning and taken on a 5 hour bus ride to get to Gallipoli. Jayne was loving the bus ride for some reason and thought the people on our bus were going to be hilarious. One man did ask during a brief toilet stop if it was safe to get off the bus, while our bus driver picked his nose for the entire 5 hour drive. Our tour guide at Gallipoli was so cute in an old man way and Ooti loved him. For some reason she couldn't understand what he was saying and thought he was Irish when he definitely had a Turkish accent. Our tour guide implied that Turkey were in the war on the German side in WWI because the Germans essentially used the Turkish. Apparently Turkey had bought two battle ships from Britain and when the war happened Britain decided they needed the ships for themselves and didn't give Turkey back the money or the ships. Germany approached Turkey and said they could have the ships for free and they changed the flags and the German uniforms so the boats looked Turkish. Then they proceeded to bomb the Russians making the Russians believe they were at war with Turkey. Our first stop on the tour was Brighton beach which is where the ANZACs thought they were going to land. We then headed to ANZAC cove - you can see the uneven terrain and cliff faces. We also went to lone pine, beach cemetery, ariburnu cemetery, ANZAC commemoration site, Johnston's jolly, the nek and chunuk bair memorial. All the memorials were lovely and well maintained. The youngest australian fighter was 14 years old with the average age being around 18 with the Turkish average age being mid 30s. It is definitely worth seeing if you come to Turkey but it is an extremely long day as we had 10 hours (return istanbul) on the bus plus the 5 hours of the actual Gallipoli tour.
Later
Amanda
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