CANAKKALE, TURKEY

We will begin our tour with a short drive to Gallipoli to catch the ferry to Anzac Cove where there are ten Anzac cemeteries located alongside.

We will begin our tour with a short drive to Gallipoli to catch the ferry to Anzac Cove where there are ten Anzac cemeteries located alongside. We will then make a stop at Kabatepe Museum, which displays a collection of war relics found on the battlefields and also military uniforms of each nation, which fought in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Our next stop will be at the Lone Pine Memorial, which is the main Australian memorial on Gallipoli, commemorating the 3,268 Australians and 456 New Zealanders who died in the campaign and have no known grave and the 960 Australians and 252 New Zealanders who were buried at sea. Chunuk Bair (Conkbayiri) was a main target for the Anzac force, but remained in Turkish hands, except for a brief period when an exhausted New Zealand force occupied the peak. For two days they viewed the distant goal of the campaign, the Dardanelles, eight kilometres away. On the 10th August, Turkish troops commanded by Mustafa Kemal, counter-attacked and drove off the New Zealanders. The Turks controlled the heights unchallenged for the rest of the campaign. In Chunuk Bair we will make a stop at the New Zealand National Memorial, which dominated the peak of Chunuk Bair with its massive stone pylon. It is dedicated to the New Zealand soldiers who served on Gallipoli and bars the epigraph: “From the uttermost end of the earth”. Anzac Day ceremonies generally conclude with a New Zealand ceremony on this highest point of the Allied advance. Alongside the New Zealand Memorial is a bronze sculpture of Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemel (Conkbayiri Atataturk Memorial); the statue commemorates his remarkable escape from injury when his pocket watch stopped a piece of shrapnel as he was leading the counter attack on the 10th August. With his determined holding of the Allied advance and the later recapture of Chunuk Bair, Mustafa Kemal proved himself one of the most outstanding commanders of the Gallipoli campaign. Below the summit about 20 metres to the east is the New Zealand Chunuk Bair Memorial, a low stone wall on which are recorded the names of 856 New Zealand soldiers who died in the August offensive and afterwards, and whose names are not recorded on any other memorials. Opposite the wall is the Chunuk Bair Cemetery which contains the remains of British, New Zealand and Gurkha dead who were buried here by Turkish soldiers after they drove the Allies from Chunuk Bair. There are 620 unidentified soldiers buried on the slopes of the cemetery and only 10 identified graves. After our final visit we will make our way back to the ferry that will take us back to Gallipoli for our short drive back to our ship. Please note that although there is a fair amount of walking involved in this tour most of it is over flat land and is accessible by wheelchair.

DESCRIPTION CORRECT FOR 2007 CANARIES & MEDITERRANEAN CRUISES