I was impressed, though, at the amount of Turkish people who did come: I would really have thought it wouldn’t interest them. But I think the Aussie and Kiwi governments, who pay and organise the whole thing, would like greater Turkish participation in the day – the brochures issued included Turkish translations; excerpts from Turkish documentaries were shown (including one by a Turkish filmmaker that was excellent – narrated by Sam Neil and Jeremy Irons, I’m going to track it down when I get home), and the Turkish President apparently included a video message alongisde Ruddy and the Kiwi Prime Minister (however, I must have been asleep for that bit, because I don’t remember seeing any of them). There was also a lot about Ataturk, the commanding officer in charge of the Turkish forces who fought in Gallipoli, and who later went on to be the driving force behind Turkish independence and democratic reform; he later became good mates with Australian and Kiwi Prime Ministers, and it’s because of his goodwill and respect for us foreign invaders that we have such a good relationship with Turkey today (and can take over their sacred national park for a massive event every year like we do, and can host thousands of drunken 20 year old Australians, which is a hard sell in any country).

After the ceremony I hung around in a high position, waiting to see if I could find Brad and Pamela, who I knew were there somewhere (earlier in the morning, I’d been waiting in the toilet queue when Brad tapped me on the shoulder).

When I found them, we all headed up the steep hill that leads to the Lone Pine memorial site for the Australian service. Again, big screens and grandstands, though this time we sat amongst graves instead of grassed lawns (though, technically, given the amount of dead buried randomly throughout the peninsula, every part of the Gallipoli National Park is a grave site). At this point it was near impossible to stay awake – the announcer, an ABC journalist with a funny goatie, asked the crowd not to ‘lay down’ amongst the graves, but here and there people slumped dozing.

In the chaos after the memorial, some were choosing to head 6km uphill to Chunuck Bair, for the New Zealand service; the rest had given up already, crashing wherever there was shade. I lost Brad and Pam in the throng, and decided to head uphill. Mistake or not, I made up for the oily (but delicious!) Iskender kebab I would eat later that day in that grueling trek – and I didn’t even attend the Kiwi service. However, the sun was out, and the views across the Dardanelles were without comparison: I was kicking myself that my camera battery had died earlier that morning (tuckered out by Topkapi Palace and the Dawn Service). There was a reward at Chunuck Bair though: Turkish Icecream, chewy and wonderful, though no comparison to gelati, of course.

The NZ service ended at 1:30pm. Now, imagine getting 7500 Australasians onto tour buses all at once, in a tiny one-lane road, in a national park not that different to Belair. Imagine the chaos.  Our tour organiser was ‘mates’ with the local police, so our buses were the first to leave, thankfully – but some friends didn’t get out till 7pm. Meanwhile, we were ferried, exhausted, cold, and grotty, back to Eceabat, where we had a bizarrely civil three course dinner, and met the infamous ‘TJ’ responsible for all the insanity.

Enduring memories of the dawn service:

1. It was f___king cold. Thankyou thankyou thankyou Caro for that sleeping bag! It saved my life.

2. As I sat near the food stalls, the enduring sound of the night will be ‘kebab! kebab! Chucken kebab!’. The pushy capitalistic ’Kebab/Kebab’ sellers penetrated even in this little fantasy zone, even though there were no other choices for food as we were a good 10 kilometres from the nearest market or take away store.

3. Turkish capitalism extended even further than in Istanbul. I expected to find a carpet seller just a few stalls down if I’d kept walking. Instead there were guys selling polyester rugs and cushions, starting at 30 lira at the beginning of the night, leading to 5 lira just before dawn; home printed ‘ANZAK’ t-shirts and jumpers; random second hand clothing, beanies and gloves; 5lira coffee (thats $5 AUD – not filtered, Nescafe of course); and even Aussie and Kiwi flags.

4. An appreciation of Ataturk – he was the Nelson Mandela or Abraham Lincoln of his country – guy did some good things.

4. And, a feeling of gentle horror, dealt by an Andrew Denton documentary – an excerpt of which was shown before the dawn service: he walked in a plow field on the peninsula, and picked up shell casings, bullet casings, teeth and human bones from the cracked soil. Every part of the peninsula is a cemetery. As I was walking up the gravel road to Lone Pine, I looked down with a sick feeling in my stomach expecting to find a piece of soldier somewhere.

Returning to Eceabat, I lay straight down on my bed after checking in and, like everyone else, slept until late evening. I had that Iskender kebab (lamb kebab with a tomato sauce and yoghurt – really really good), and joined the others to watch Gallipoli; I survived up to the point where they’re in Egypt, and went back to bed.

My tour included a tour of the battlefields the next day. It was a case of revisiting everywhere I’d been the day before, except more awake and with a guide.

TJ is a Turkish Eceabat native, who grew up in a nomadic Turkish village, before somehow ending up living in New South Wales. He said his name refers to his ‘Tom Jones’ haircut. Now married to an Australian, he spends his summers alternately in Australia managing a Turkish restaurant in Aubury Wodonga, and in Turkey managing his hostel. He’d become somewhat of a Gallipoli national park expert, and his tour of the battlefields is the best of the (many) tours I’ve taken in Turkey (and there’s been some shockers).

Unlike the day before, which had been warm and clear, the day we returned to the battlefields (in which I actually had a working camera), it was rainy and overcast until the afternoon. Brilliant.

Anzac cove, now nicely reinforced with stone retaining walls, is also littered with World War II bunkers – Turkey stayed neutral in WWII but built concrete bunkers along the Dardanelles and Aegean seas ‘just in case’.