2011 - Greg's Vienna to Istanbul Cycle Tour: Day 47: Wed 13 Jul

Weather: fine & sunny, cooling breeze - 30deg

After another very nice dinner last night (included in the price of our room) we spent a relaxing hour or so on the Stargazers Deck. It's a 10 x 12m open solid concrete deck built on top of the restaurant. The furniture is solid wood and like everything else in this place, always immaculately clean. A few tastefully placed flower pots complete the picture. It looks directly out onto the main (Third) ridge of Gallipoli, with ANZAC Cove etc being on the other (sea) side. My room opens just about right onto it so it is perfect for that early morning coffee or late stargazing. Breakfast is not until 0800h so I have plenty of time to fill in after getting up.

The minaret of the local mosque is about 100m from our rooms so we hear the call to prayer (very loud and clear through speakers) at 0500h. I'm generally stirring by then so it doesn't bother me, but for some it's a bit rude. I suspect that this mosque uses a timed recording four times a day as it starts a bit abruptly and sounds exactly the same every time. The village has a tiny population of 50, so it's a wonder they can support a mosque at all. We don't see many Muslims praying openly while we are out and about during midday prayers; I saw only one yesterday. Not sure what that indicates; maybe that they are not as devoted, don't know? Of course Turkey is a secular state. We do see a fair number of ladies in the full burka. I wonder how many of them are visitors from the Middle East?

Fred had an upset gut overnight so he's not feeling 100% today. We have been very lucky thus far with very little illnesses amongst the group. We certainly haven't lost any person-days through illness.

First stop on today's tour was a small Turkish symbolic cemetery towards the Southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsular. The Turks had recently redone the cemetery and used the shape of the traditional Turkish helmet for the headstones. Each headstone had the name of a town / city where soldiers who had died in battle had come from. Some of the places were from nearby countries. At Cape Helles (the Southern tip) itself there is an enormous cemetery containing the graves / memorial of about 60,000 Turkish soldiers killed in action just in that part of the campaign. The headstones here are made out of marble with 32 names on each etched into glass panels. It's very well done. The Çanakkale (Gallipoli) Martyr's Memorial is located here also and stands 41.7m high. It is currently being refurbished. While we were walking around this area there was a large squad of (200 <>) Turkish Army recruits in uniform on a visit. When they were finished they marched them away singing some sort of patriotic and / or marching chant. They looked and sounded pretty tough. Like us they have an excellent reputation to uphold.

The Brits landed right near the tip of the Cape (S Beach) on 25 Apr 15. This area was later taken over by the French Army.

We often think of Gallipoli as an Army campaign but there were 34 significant Royal Navy ships sunk here too, many with the loss of all crew. Just in the Cape area alone there were 20,504 British and 248 Aussie soldiers killed, staggering numbers. There is an Allied memorial, which names all the ships that were sunk and the Army units involved in the Gallipoli campaign, not far from the main Turkish memorial. It is also currently being refurbished.

After this we were ready for lunch so we stopped at an outdoor restaurant that mainly serves pancakes. We sat under the cool shade of the grape vines and had the potato pancakes with some salad and a fresh lemonade. They gave us some complimentary dessert which tasted like polenta mixed with honey and crushed walnuts. It was all very nice and the whole thing for the five of us cost A$23.

We then drove the 10km to Suvla Bay for a cooling swim (I just had a paddle) in the Aegean Sea. Suvla Bay was the Brits last attempt to salvage something out of the Gallipoli disaster. It was an amphibious landing on 6 Aug 15 lead by an incompetent Lt Gen named Sir F. Stopford. After a week of inaction and mismanagement they sacked him. This debacle also lead to the sacking of the overall commander Gen Sir Ian Hamilton, however by then (Oct 15) the damage had been done and the campaign had descended into a serious of stalemates. Obviously they weren't granted their Knighthoods because of successes in the battlefields, must have inherited them from Daddy. Lions lead by Donkeys. The only real success of the whole campaign was the withdrawal; the Turks didn't twig that it was happening and there wasn't one life lost.

After the swim we'd had enough for the day so it was back to Gallipoli House for a shower and rest.

Another great day in

Turkey