A day at Gallipoli.

Today was the day Peter and I visited the battlefields of Gallipoli. To go through the experience of visiting Gallipoli would take a very long time, time I don't have right now.  The history of the Australians, New Zealanders, British, Canadian, Indian and even Sri Lankans, all attempting to take the important ocean route of the Dardanelles from the Turkish, would take forever.  To sum the whole battle up is rather simple, poor strategies which were constantly repeated by the invading troops, led the Turks to a convincing victory.

I've taken a lot of photos today, and the ones in my story I think are the most significant in the battle for Gallipoli.

The bottom photo was taken at the battlefield of lone pine.  The pine tree is actually the 3rd pine tree planted in the area, as the other 2 were destroyed by fire.  This pine tree was a gift from the Victorian Government of Australia.  Each of the sites we visited have the graves of those young men who died for their countries, and there's thousands of them.

The photo above was taken at the site where the ANZAC day dawn service is commemorated each year.  It was a moving experience to be in this area where many young men lost their lives fighting for the control of a waterway.

The photo above is our tour guide Adam, or in Turkish, Adem.  He works out of the Crowded House Hotel in Ecobat.  He's has a degree in history and archeology and is president of the tourist guides for Turkey.  He knew everything about the war. I learnt things today that I had never read before in any textbooks about this conflict.

The photo above is of the Turkish graves and monument in honor of the Turkish soldiers who lost their lives in this battle.

The photo above is of the monument indicating the area of the first landing of Australians on what is now known as ANZAC COVE. For those historians of the Gallipoli campaign, the youngest person to die on the battle field was an Australian 14 years and 9 months. His name is J. Martin, and he's name is indicated in the photo below.

The photo below is Peter and I standing at the ANZAC COVE site.

The photo below is one of many monuments depicting a Turkish soldier in battle throughout the Gallipoli historical site.

 I took the photo below from one of the photos on the wall at the ANZAC DAY dawn service area.

By the end of the day, we had been told about many battles, over 500,000 casualties, 2000 deaths a day for 250 days, acts of kindness from both sides of the trenches, all because Churchill believed the taking of the Dardanelles would take them into Istanbul and eventually the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

This story does go on, but that is for another day. 

Peter and I were given an amazing history lesson and Adem our guide had my 100% attention all day.  I thoroughly recommend Crowded House Tours for Gallipoli and would place Gallipoli as a must for any Australian & NZ tourist who travels to this part of the world. I'm so glad I made the effort to see this region before my tour comes to an end next week.

Tomorrow we have planned another tour of Gallipoli and might even go for a swim on the sunken war ship Milo.

Until tomorrow, safe riding.