Day 6 (Saturday ANZAC Day)
Big screens showed all the entertainment and highlights being played up at the ACS and everything was perfect except for the creepy security guard who had to be escorted away by Aust. Federal Police officers. At 2:30 am Cherry had great delight in waking the kids up for the biggest day of their lives so far. Another security check and we are shuttled up to ACS. We are given an ANZAC type showbag with a beanie, books and other stuff that we will all keep for our grandkids and then we shuffle in to the site that some of you may have watched on TV. It was so eerily quiet even though there were 10,500 people present. They played the sounds of waves lapping the shoreline and then the noise of oars rowing boats up to the beach. In the still totally dark pre-dawn, the service commenced. Out to sea behind the beach we could see the outlines of all the warships that would eventually glide past during the service. One enduring memory will always be how in quiet times during the service we could hear the sound of birds chirping in the trees around us as the dawn commenced. It all seemed to end very quickly and we were marshalled to move 3km up along Artillery Road to get to the Lone Pine morning service some 4 hours later.
The walk up to Lone Pine was again a bit like a walk through the Royal National Park but his time we had an armed Turkish soldier every 20m apart on both sides of the steep dirt track. That was a very comforting feeling though. 100 years ago they were defending against Australians; on this day they were protecting us. The steepness of the track was probably too much for some of the older people (and some unfit younger people too) but everyone reflected on the added dangers of being shot at during the war and just got on with it. Another checkpoint later and we made our second visit to Lone Pine. This time we had allocated seating and eagerly awaited the morning service. While waiting, Mr. Cherry snuck off to visit the grave of RW Allen and again pay his respects on behalf of Mrs Shirley Watkins and her WW1 dad Bert Allen.
A media scrum occurred around Prince Charles and Prince Harry when they did a lap around the crowd prior to commencement of formalities. Possibly sounding a bit ‘anti-royal’ at this point, I wish the Royals just went to their seats because we were all saddened by the behaviour of the media circus as they ignored graves and headstones in their attempts to get the money shot. Despite all that we sat through a fantastic service that was different in parts to the dawn service as the Kiwi’s were up the road at Chunuk Bair. A 3km return walk down to the beach area and shuttle back to Mimosa holding area was our final memory of ANZAC 2015.
We were released from the holding area 24 hours after we first arrived yesterday and I reckon everyone was asleep within 5 minutes of the bus driving off towards Istanbul. The trip took about 5 hours with a meal break along the way. Whilst at the restaurant, everyone was very excited to see (by pure coincidence) our group on the Turkish television evening news. Our 10 seconds of fame was during the national anthem as a camera panned across the NSW representatives; this news outlet happened to choose the right footage for their report at just the right time!
We arrived at our original Istanbul hotel and everyone was keen to get their room key and crash. (Imagine however just how long it takes to allocate 128 room keys to over tired Aussies).
Big screens showed all the entertainment and highlights being played up at the ACS and everything was perfect except for the creepy security guard who had to be escorted away by Aust. Federal Police officers. At 2:30 am Cherry had great delight in waking the kids up for the biggest day of their lives so far. Another security check and we are shuttled up to ACS. We are given an ANZAC type showbag with a beanie, books and other stuff that we will all keep for our grandkids and then we shuffle in to the site that some of you may have watched on TV. It was so eerily quiet even though there were 10,500 people present. They played the sounds of waves lapping the shoreline and then the noise of oars rowing boats up to the beach. In the still totally dark pre-dawn, the service commenced. Out to sea behind the beach we could see the outlines of all the warships that would eventually glide past during the service. One enduring memory will always be how in quiet times during the service we could hear the sound of birds chirping in the trees around us as the dawn commenced. It all seemed to end very quickly and we were marshalled to move 3km up along Artillery Road to get to the Lone Pine morning service some 4 hours later.
The walk up to Lone Pine was again a bit like a walk through the Royal National Park but his time we had an armed Turkish soldier every 20m apart on both sides of the steep dirt track. That was a very comforting feeling though. 100 years ago they were defending against Australians; on this day they were protecting us. The steepness of the track was probably too much for some of the older people (and some unfit younger people too) but everyone reflected on the added dangers of being shot at during the war and just got on with it. Another checkpoint later and we made our second visit to Lone Pine. This time we had allocated seating and eagerly awaited the morning service. While waiting, Mr. Cherry snuck off to visit the grave of RW Allen and again pay his respects on behalf of Mrs Shirley Watkins and her WW1 dad Bert Allen.
A media scrum occurred around Prince Charles and Prince Harry when they did a lap around the crowd prior to commencement of formalities. Possibly sounding a bit ‘anti-royal’ at this point, I wish the Royals just went to their seats because we were all saddened by the behaviour of the media circus as they ignored graves and headstones in their attempts to get the money shot. Despite all that we sat through a fantastic service that was different in parts to the dawn service as the Kiwi’s were up the road at Chunuk Bair. A 3km return walk down to the beach area and shuttle back to Mimosa holding area was our final memory of ANZAC 2015.
We were released from the holding area 24 hours after we first arrived yesterday and I reckon everyone was asleep within 5 minutes of the bus driving off towards Istanbul. The trip took about 5 hours with a meal break along the way. Whilst at the restaurant, everyone was very excited to see (by pure coincidence) our group on the Turkish television evening news. Our 10 seconds of fame was during the national anthem as a camera panned across the NSW representatives; this news outlet happened to choose the right footage for their report at just the right time!
We arrived at our original Istanbul hotel and everyone was keen to get their room key and crash. (Imagine however just how long it takes to allocate 128 room keys to over tired Aussies).