Well! We have been ahvıng an awesome tıme here ın Europe! Mıcaela has been keepıng a diary of everywhere and everything we have been doing and will post it when she has time to type for hours on end. So most likely back home. Anyway! We entered Turkey today after spendıng some tıme ın Greece on the Island of Corfu and then Athens. Corfu was amazıng and we traveled around ın style on a Quad. Lots of fun. The last two nıghts were at tow lovely campsıtes wıth lots of good food and fun to be had. Turkey ıs lovely so [View Full Entry]

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Troy and Gallipoli. Two names of great significance - one has been immortalised in the culture of western civilisation by an ancient Greek epic, the other has been burned into the psyche of the Australian and New Zealand nations. Visiting both in the same day is quite something, let me tell you. Troy was close to the hotel so we arrived after a short drive. We were the first group there, but our advantage was soon eroded by our guide talking and us asking questions. A couple of large groups overtook us, but still, it was fairly quiet. It was interesting [View Full Entry]

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We arrived utterly exhausted from our tour of Egypt utterly desperate for a Laundromat to wash our clothes at. We’d gone for wayyyy to long without a machine wash and the old handwash in the basin was losing its effect. The family was there to meet us at the hotel and it was lovely to see them again and we couldn’t believe how much Kaylah had grown up since we’ve been gone. We had a day in Istanbul before our tour began and took the time to catch up on some sleep and visit the Bazaar. After that though, we were [View Full Entry]

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Okay. No matter what I say about this stop on my travels, I'm not going to do it justice. But I guess I have to try! This blog will be a big longer than my usual summary for those who wanted lots of details... So sorry to those with less interest and time. We arrived and took the ferry across to Carnakkale (and Europe!) at around 7am on 24 April. The weather was clear and sunny, though cold, which seemed slightly surreal considering the reason we were here. Our group of 24 (Aussies, Kiwis and one sole American) were lucky enough [View Full Entry]

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24-4-08 A long day. It was our trio down to Gallipoli. We were killing time in morning walking around the Saltanahmet area until our tour left. We arrived at our tour office to find that we weren’t leaving at 12, but at 1 instead. At 1 we found out that the bus was running 30 minutes late. At 3 we were finally on our way. It usually takes about four to five hours to get to Gallipoli. It took us eight! Our bus driver refused to exceed 60km/h, because it was windy (slight breeze I would say), but had no problem [View Full Entry]

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Good Afternoon all. We have finally reach Turkey and it's much warmer. Stephen and I are just wearing one layer. I'm very excited about it. Unfortunately we have run into our first spot of bother. While flying to Istanbul from Moscow the airline has trashed Stephen's backpack. The injures incurred include a couple of holes, missing and damages straps and a bent frame. We're in the process of trying to follow it up with the airline and will have to fix it before we leave Istanbul as it won't travel in it's current state. Anyway, we began our Sammy's Travel 6 [View Full Entry]

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We left Istanbul early in the morning and took a 5hr bus to Eceabat. A tour guide picked us up and we set off on a PACKAGE TOUR. Kees was over the moon at having reached the highest echalon of travelers. It was a fantastic, and often somber experience. We visited the museum, what amazed me most was all the bullets which they had found which had hit one another in mid air. Can you imagine the intesity of fighting that would be neccessary for this to occur on such a large scale. We walked at ANZAC cove, around Lone Pine. [View Full Entry]

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We got to the Çanakkale Peninsula at about 3pm after a pleasant drive day, and met our guide at the museum on the Gelibolu penninsula. He gave us a tactical rundown of events surrounding the Battle of Gallipoli from a Turkish perspective, which was really interesting. We then went into the museum to see artifacts, uniforms and weapons from the battles. It was a good intro for the afternoon, and I had no idea how many monuments and battlefields and cemetries and trenches there were to come. We first visited the main cemetry on the coast near ANZAC cove. The cove [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday, we headed south away from İstanbul to Ecebat on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Today we're looking forward to a tour of the battlefields of Gallipoli, but more about that next blog. On Sunday we braved the blazing sun to take in the Turkish Grand Prix. We were sitting on an embankment where it was 36 degrees, and we had no shade. The GP was awesome though. We had a great view of several corners and a long straight. No crashes occured in front of us, but there were some close calls. You don't get a full apprecıatıon for the speed of [View Full Entry]

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So I'm back checking out another World War sight. This time it's in turkey instead of Belgium or northern France. Gallipoli: This is where the British underestimated how much people are willing to fight on there own soil. The British looking to clear a way to the Black Sea to allow the Russian navy to get to the Mediterranean to help the British forces. They thought the Turks would give up as soon as they saw the size of their battleships and their guns. They would only have to fire a couple rounds as they pass through the Dardanelles and [View Full Entry]

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