Getting to Turkey was the easy part

Getting to Turkey was the easy part. We got through the airport just fine. We found a taxi right out front - even though the driver couldn't speak English and drove a bit like a maniac, stopping in the middle of the road to ask random people for directions. We got to the hotel we were booked into, only to find they had overbooked and we were being shunted off to another hotel – who had a room waiting for us.

We hailed another taxi. The taxi driver was called Mehmet and he didn't really know where the next hotel was. So for an hour we drove around and around the narrow and crowded Istanbul streets, stopping many a time for him to ask directions.

Finally he found the hotel and after spending about 45 million lira on taxi fares we thought ‘yay finally a place to rest our heads' – especially as we had been flying for nearly 17 hours!

We entered the hotel and presented our voucher only to find they had no rooms and knew nothing about us. Hmmm. I tried calling the other hotel only to be hung up on and put on hold forever. So my poor best friend (who is my travel agent) got a call in the middle of the night back in New Zealand, as there really were no rooms anywhere in Istanbul due to the city being totally overwhelmed with thousands of Aussies and Kiwis and then all the rest of the usual tourists (read heaps of Germans!).

Anyhow a hotel was finally found for us but it was a dive. But still it was clean and so we crashed for about 14 hours and woke up the next day ready to head off on our Anzac tour.

After leaving our hotel box, sorry room, we got another taxi to where our tour was leaving from. The first stop was the Blue Mosque. It was cold - about 9 degrees - and raining. There were long queues to get into the mosque as well, but it was an awesome sight, as was the Aya Sofia.

We headed to our hotel in the afternoon, which was just outside Keshan. Our hotel was nice, but a basic nice. However the most impressive thing was our fabulous view over a white sandy beach. Kind of chilly though, so no swimming or sunbathing!

Waking early to leave for Anzac cove, I jumped into the tiny "wet room" - shower in the toilet, in a room the size of a small toilet. Sunny but chilly outside. Just right for a nice hot shower! But the water was freezing. So no shower for me. Was a pain as I needed to wash my hair - so my Anzac experience was spent with dirty hair.

Anyhow after breakfast (olives, feta, bread, honey, tomatoes, cucumber and more olives and lashings of Turkish tea or the universal Nescafe - do they even serve real Turkish coffee in Turkey anymore?), we all got on the bus with sleeping bag and warm clothes and headed to Gallipoli for our Anzac adventure.

We arrived at the Gallipoli peace park late in the morning. It had turned into a fairly warm day with no clouds in the sky. First stop was Anzac Cove. It was beautiful. Clear water and a small beach. There were several small cemeteries with wild irises and poppies popping up all around. Very peaceful - apart from all the tourists and the people trying to sell NZ and Aussie flags!

There were a lot of Turkish people up on the peninsula as well. Not something we had expected. We later found out that because of all the press they had decided to come along and join the party and see all these crazy kiwis and aussies who had travelled so far to celebrate a losing military campaign!

We headed to a small seaside town for and had a good chat with our fellow tour mates and made plans for the night ahead. Before dinner we had had a chance to walk around the town. There were souvenir touts everywhere! Everything from Gallipoli/Anzac day flags, polo shirts, t-shirts, hats, mugs, posters - anything you could imagine. We all headed to a bar to enjoy an Efes lager - the local Turkish beer. As we were walking there we managed to get in the middle of a big fight. A group of guys (Turkish) came running out of a cafe and were yelling and screaming at each other - in Turkish unfortunately. Chairs were thrown, which we managed to avoid. Then one of the guys grabbed a whole lot of empty glass beer bottles from a crate that was being loaded onto a van. He was chucking them and they were flying everywhere - one narrowly missing one of our group. Then the police came out and tried to stop and a wrestling match ensued.

After dinner we went to an Aussie theme bar run by Turks - called the Vegemite bar. They were right by the sea and had a mini bonfire going which was nice as it had got a lot chillier. They even had an aussie soundtrack playing!

We boarded the bus about 10.30pm, as it was our bus' time to enter Gallipoli. As there were over 600 buses, they had all been given times to drive onto the peninsula (and drive off).

Our bus did not get very far onto the peninsula as there were about 50 000 others before it! So this meant a longish walk for us to Anzac Cove. Thankfully it was all flat - the hilly part was for Anzac day itself! It took us about 30 minutes to reach the check point and another 10 minutes to get to the seating area.

The seating area and the stands were packed! So we decided to head up the hill behind. It was a bit of a trek because it was quite dark and we only had tiny mag lights, and there were some trenches to climb over and there was a lot of prickly scrub/gorse. Anyhow we found a primo spot about 50 - 70 metres above the cove. We set ourselves up and began the wait. The wind picked up and it got pretty chilly. Thankfully Mike and I had our cosy down sleeping bags. Mike slept pretty well but I maybe had 2 hours. I kept on being woken by Turkish soldiers with big guns standing over me! They would come across people in the dark and check them out to make sure all was well. I also woke up to have this crazy guy standing right over me jabbering away very loudly. I was asleep and woke up to this and got one hell of a fright!

About 3am the Australian warship HMS Anzac lit up with lights. It was patrolling the waters off Anzac cove. More people found our spot and joined us. We had Mike's fake NZ flag tied to a bush and it flew pretty well in the breeze - fake because the red stars had no white outline. Much fun was had trying to find a private spot for a pee. The guys were ok, but us girls headed into the bushes which turned out to be gorse bushes! So got a few prickles.

At 4am old war songs started playing, and traditional kiwi and aussie songs. This was followed by the Prelude to the Dawn Service. This used the two large screens to show original footage and told the story of the Anzac campaign. There were about 20 large lights (high powered beams) that were used to light up the hills behind Anzac cove and the cove itself. It was quite amazing. The dawn service was very moving and Helen Clark made a very good speech.

After the dawn service had finished everyone left the seating area and headed towards the road to walk up to Lone Pine and Chunick Bair. It is quite a long walk. Mike decided to follow a few people who got fed up with the huge crowds on the road, and we headed up through Shrapnel valley on a small goat track. We literally went up over the top just like the kiwis did so many years before. It was hard going but the view was stunning. Although we walked a long way it was worth it.

Chunick Bair is surrounded by a lot of trenches. It also boasts an amazing view over the peninsula. It was a very moving experience to visit it.

Up at Chunick Bair we found a spot and I fell asleep. It started to get very hot and we all got sun burnt. Woke up to find that we were being photographed by loads of Turkish kids - like being in a zoo!

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