ANZAC Day: The Details

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Accommodation:

  • Ecabat: Crowded House Hotel – Very nice small hotel with “on to it” operators 🙂
  • resturants in the area were disapointing
  • Canakkle: Egem Pension – Nice hotel, helpful staff and good location
    Canakkale is a nice universaty city with plenty of good food options including good service, and good shopping – a very good base for ANZAC

Day -2

  • The Turkish English and French have ceremonies on this day
  • Crowded House Battlefield Tour: A very good way to get a understanding of the area with a balanced commentary including the Turkish perspective $25pp
  • Brought Large plastic rubbish bad to sit on (past vendors selling clear polythene in Ecabat the next day)
  • Watch the ANZAC movie at the Anzac hostel in the evening (free)

Day -1 Anzac Eve

  • Organise food.
  • Midday Ferry to Ecabat 2.5TL pp
  • Local dolmus (bus) from the square to the Galipolli Museum Just before Kabatepe. 9.3km 15min 3TL pp
  • Walk 4km to ANZAC Cove (there were are couple of check points on the way where we were told (at the one before) that we would have to wait, but we were let straight through each time.
  • Arrived at Entrance to commemorative site at 3pm. A bus load already waiting (having been dropped off before road was closed in the morning)
  • Site opened at 6pm, we were with in first 20 on site for a great spot on grass in front of walkway.
  • Documentaries on large screens and music all night long.

ANZAC Day

  • After Dawn Service, walked up to Chunuk Bair for the NZ Service 2.1km to Lone Pine then a further 3.3km to Chunuk Bair.
  • Had to wait  for a Turkish Ceremony to finish on the site first
  • Entered site about 8:30am
  • 11:30 Service over and headed back down the road on foot – past all the buses
  • Decided to walk down Lone Pine Road (6.2km to walk down main road to the Museum)
  • Tried to hitch a ride (in turkey you need to wave down a ride – like bouncing a ball – the thumb option doesn’t register)
  • got picked up by a local bus and dropped at the Octopark by the sea before the museum. we then managed to catch a Taxi back to Ecabat for 30TL other option was to try and get a ride on the dolmus that meets the ferry – but we had already seen the ferry leave on our walk down the hill.
  • We arrived back in Canakkale at 3:30pm well be for the last tour bus that were still coming off the ferry at 10pm