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Published: July 25th 2015
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Friday 24 July:
A noisy night with people both in and outside of the hotel and then a very shaky start to the day as at 5:39am a magnitude 4.8 earthquake with its epicentre just across the water in Eceabat occurred. This was actually the third in an hour but was the strongest and woke Heather and I, and most of the rest of the town. It was quite shallow at about 7km so we rocked rather a lot! This is the first really significant quake that either of us have experienced. Zachary slept through it. In total there have been 22 quakes today but we have only felt that one, plus one other at just before 10am when we were in the foreign exchange office.
After that excitement we didn’t really get back to sleep fully and at the appropriate time headed for breakfast. The spread looked good initially but it wasn’t that easy to find things we wanted to eat. We all eventually found something and then packed our bag and headed into town. We picked up our t-shirts, got some lira (while being shaken) and then met Jimmy back at the hotel
for our day out.
First stop was at the naval museum in Canakkale. Heather had to do some urgent grocery shopping so I took Zachary in. He wasn’t really into the presentation on the ship so I took him out and he played on the playground that was there. Heather got back in time for us to go into the fortress where there was a short film and displays about the campaigns of 1915. We then walked back to the hotel to pick up our bags and headed back across the water for lunch at a local restaurant. It was much the same as yesterday’s, but not as good.
Then it was time for the main event: a visit to the key sites on the Gallipoli peninsula. We went to Anzac Cove to see where the first troops landed (not where they thought they had landed). It is a beautiful beach today, but the troops 100 years ago certainly had no chance to admire its beauty. We could see from ground level how hopelessly exposed the troops were to fire from the hills above. This is also where the memorial services are held. We
then visited a number of graveyards of the fallen soldiers before heading inland to other important sites including Lone Pine Cemetery and Chunuk Bair.
As well as seeing some of the original tunnels / trenches we also got to go to Walker’s Ridge. Here we could clearly see what the Ottoman soldiers would have seen and how easy it would have been to pick them off.
Jimmy, our guide, has been excellent. His knowledge is very thorough and he has not minded having Zachary on board at all. There have been 7 of us in total with a couple from Australia and a Canadian guy and his Russian girlfriend. The guy actually works in Burkina Faso in IT and works 40 days on and 23 days off, so he travels quite a bit. Sounds like a good lifestyle to me!
After that it was time to head back to Istanbul, stopping for dinner on the way. This was at a small café which has a buffet that looked thoroughly unappealing. However, we managed to get them to toast some cheese paninis for us so that did the job. I managed to
book a hotel in Ankara online in the bus. We wanted to stay near the airport but, so far as I could make out there are only 3 hotels that are right at the airport. Two were fully booked and the other was the Ibis, which doesn’t allow children. I found this somewhat bizarre.
We got back at just before 10pm after some creative driving through the jammed roads of the old city. A bit hair-raising but quite entertaining!
Tomorrow is a long travel day as we catch a 10am bus to
Ankara. This should take about 5.5 hours and from there find a bus to
Beypazari which will be another 1.5 hours or so. But once there at least we’ll have a week to (hopefully) take it a bit easy!
The other news her (apart from the earthquakes) is that Turkey has finally joined the fight against ISIS. Their position had been a bit unclear prior to now but they now have come to a decision that they must take an active role. Turkey has long land borders with Iraq and Syria and the ongoing flood of refugees is a
headache. ISIS are a direct threat to Turkey’s stability and I applaud them for taking this positive step. Hopefully it doesn’t make Turkey more prone to attacks from ISIS sympathisers. From what we have seen and understand Turkey is a very tolerant country and practices Islam as it should be, not as it has been twisted into by radicals.
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