Awustralians at Troy & Gallipoli

To explain the spelling of "Awustralians" in the heading of this post you need to look at this photo.

This was what the guy printed on our bus tickets to Cannakale. This provided us with a lot of entertainment while waiting for the bus... kind of sad what amuses us these days :-)

So we left Selcuk at 8pm by a bus heading for Canakkale which is a town we were picked up in to go on our tours of Troy & Gallipoli. the bus was supposed to get in at 5am leaving us with 3 hours to sit around and have some breakfast before getting picked up for our tour. the bus got in early though, at 2.30am (!) we were dropped off in Canakkale. we stood around looking at each other not really sure what to do for a while then decided to get on the ferry to go to Eceabat which is where the hostel was we were doing the tours through.
we went to the hostel hoping to get a bed to sleep in for a few hours. they didn't have any free beds but luckily they did let us sleep in their reception on some benches for a couple of hours. we arrived at the hostel at about 3.30am and woke up at 6.30am to get ready for the tours and have some breakfast.
so that was our exciting night! i feel like a real backpacker now that i have slept on a bench... even if it was inside ;-)
So first tour was the city of Troy. us and 10 others set off in a mini bus for the 30 minute drive to Troy, on the way our tour guide gave us some information about the history of Troy and what happened there.
first thing when we got there was a look at the Trojan horse and photo opportunities. of course it is only a replica of the wooden horse.
we also saw the fortification walls and gateway entrances, our guide explained to us how to tell which era the walls were from, i wasn't really sure how to tell even after an explanation but Ewen certainly got it, he even got chosen out of the group to be quizzed and got all the answers right the little smarty pants!

We saw the Temple of Anthena and some trenches named after a guy called Schliemann who was possibly the one to discover Troy.
we saw the entrance ramp to Troy II which they built on a steep slope so as to slow down anyone trying to ram their way in the gate.
We saw a stage and seating which is called the Odeon and was used for musical performances back in the day.

and that was about it, most of the city has been destroyed, partly by an earthquake partly by Schliemann. this guy was supposed to be exploring the city, excavating it, however he was much more interested in finding treasure than preserving historical sites and he basically massacred partts of the town looking for buried treasure.

the difference between a wall excavated by a mad man and an archeologist

we drove back to Ecebat and had a lightning quick lunch so we wouldn't be late for our next tour. this tour was much more in-depth with a lot more to see, taking 4-5 hours instead of the two hours spent at Troy.
We had the same tour guide as this morning which was good because he had a way of explaining things which didn't make me want to go to sleep (which no offense to them but none of my history teachers ever had this same talent).
After an explanation of how the original battle occurred and been shown on a map where different things of the war happened we went to the Kabatepe museum where we saw clothing from the different countries armies, iv got to say i feel sorry for the french, their outfits were made from wool and had multiple layers, they would have been boiling hot in Turkey! We also saw some original war weapons including this gun with a large knife attached to the front of it.

we also saw bullets that had hit each other in the air, some had gone straight through leaving clean cut holes, others hot melted together, twisted around each other. there was a skull with the bullet still in it and lots of letters and photos displayed. one photo showed an Australian soldier giving some of his water to a Turkish soldier.
After the museum we went to Anzac Cove which is where the first Anzac soldiers arrived in Turkey.

You can still see the rock formation the Australian soldiers nicknamed the 'sphinx' and apparently this name stuck, even Turkish people now call this rock 'Sphinx'
This was a very sad place to see as our guide explained what happened here and that the sea was apparently red with blood after the battle that happened here. after only a couple of days of fighting the two sides held a ceasefire for one full day where they worked together to bury the dead from both sides. it was a very interesting war where each side respected each other and although they killed each other they only did this when both sides were armed apparently. our guide told stories of people hanging out washing or cooking and if the other side happened upon them while they were doing these chores they would not shoot because they opposed no threat unless they were armed. there are multiple photos and stories and even statues of each side helping each other out.
we saw several Beach Cemetery's and spent a while walking around the graves reading the messages and been astounded by the young ages of the men, most were younger than me and ewen when they died. many of the grave stones still have blank spaces for messages to be written if families ever find the grave.
We saw Lone Pine cemetery which is where the Australian memorial is and Johnsons Jolly which is what the trenches built by the ANZACS have been named.
We saw the view down to Shrapnel Valley where our guide told us about a man named John
Simpson who rode his donkey into the battle field several times a day to collect the injured and dead soldiers and carry them to the other side of this valley. once you see the valley you realise just how difficult this must have been for him! he was a bit of a legend among both sides of the fighters, considered the luckiest man on earth to manage to get in and out of the battle fields so many times without getting killed. sadly though he died on the 19th of May 1915 aged only 22 years old.
we also saw the New Zealand memorial (Chunuk Bair) and the Turkish memorial.
it was a sad but very interesting day. our guide was fantastic, we went through TJs tours if anyone goes to Turkey we highly recommend them! they really looked after us giving us a place to sleep, free breakfast, we went on two great tours, got a free lunch and they drove us back to Istanbul and right to our hostel door. very highly recommended!
(i'm having some trouble uploading photos at the moment so will add more in later)