On the road again...

It's Sunday today. Unfortunately we find ourselves on a ferry travelling to one of the Greek Islands. Not my choice of a way to spend a Sunday but the ferry is quite relaxing and we do have wifi and some sermons to listen to while we are in transit. Jemma organised a tour for us in Greece that takes us through a few of the Islands, its great cause just the transport and accommodation is organised and we can do what we want on the other days. Unfortunately we didn't realise that with the travelling from place to place is that we would be travelling on a Sunday when there is the choice not to... still we can relax with the sea below us. I've been able to get up to date with my journal (properly up to date) and now I am getting everyone reading this up to date too :)

After ANZAC day we had another day with our tour guide who took us all over the battle fields and the sites of Gallipoli. We went to "Brighton Beach", the place of the intended landing of the ANZACs and saw that it was actually possible to get to the high ground with ease especially because the Turks were waiting for landing elsewhere. Then to Anzac cove where we could seethe steep incline and cliff faces that the ANZACs faced during landing. We also visited the different cemeteries from the battles, even saw the grave stone of Simpson (the man with the donkey), at the request of our tour guide I read his story unfortunately substituting the word donkey for monkey providing amusement if nothing else. We went to the location of the battle of Lone pine, the ridge that is in the last scene of the Gallipoli movie where they keep sending more and more men over the top (I cant remember the name of it), the high ground of Tunic Biar, and even saw the remains of the trenches. It was a really beautiful area with all the trees and shrubs that had grown over the top, so hard to imagine all the horrors of the war that went on, yet still you were standing on ground that so many soldiers had died on.

It was a really really great experience. I learnt heaps and it was just really moving to actually be on the site that we think about each year. Following an amazing lunch of fish, we started the 5 hours bus ride back to Istanbul. We had a flight booked for 8.55 to go to Athens, when we asked about getting to the airport our tour guide nicely organised that we would have a private bus ride for half of the trip back and would be dropped off at the airport right on time. That was great. After being on a tour for a few days with the same group of people, you get to know the people in the group. When we left we said goodbye to everyone and I heard someone saying that 'the girls' are going (being the only single young people in the group that obviously became our name :P)

Being so full of Gallipoli and everything that happened there, I found it hard to get into the mind set of Greece. But here we are now. On a ferry to one of the Islands (after spending some time in Athens). I've put up photos from Gallipoli and will write another post on Athens.

xxx