Day 3- TURKEY- Dawn Service at Anzac Cove & The Aussie Service at Lone Pine

First light heralds the Dawn Service.

They went through the profiles of some of the soldiers. Many soldiers passed away on the day of arrival at Gallipoli. It was so touching and emotional. So many of the soldiers were the same age as our brothers, our friends and our fathers.The trumpet sounds....
And everyone stands in honour to remember....The service was so touching and words cannot describe how lucky i felt to be there or how proud I felt to be an Aussie. There were tears, not just from me but from most people. This is an experience that I will never ever forget.
After the dawn service we had loads of time to independently explore the many trenches and memorial sites as we made our way up to Lone Pine for the Australian National service. It was a good uphill walk to Lone Pine. The New Zealand service was at Chunuk Bair another few miles uphill from Lone Pine. This started about an hour after the Australian service at Lone Pine so all the Kiwis, headed straight to Chunuk Bair. It would have been good to go to both services but we were happy being able to attend the Australian service only.
The crowd of people leaving Anzac Cove....The walk around to the bottom of the trek up to Lone Pine looking back on Anzac Cove. This is where the soldiers first arrived. Memorials along the way...Chantelle...Mon....Me... (yes i know the Aussie flag is around the wrong way!!!)After about an hours walk, we arrived at Lone Pine for the Australian Service. This was the very spot that so many Australians lost their lives. The Governor General arrives.The service begins....The service was very very moving, they had relatives of soldiers tell their stories and their family's stories.

The 3 of us girls at the end of the service.Chantelle and the last remaining tree on the whole hill.Everyone starts to exit...We went down to check out the memorial- they have the name listed of every Australian who died and what battalion he was in.After we had a look it was time to make our way up to Chunuk Bair- where the New Zealand service was being held. The buses were picking us up from there.
On the way we stopped and discovered things... flowers...Trenches...Views....More trenches...It was quite an earie feeling walking through the trenches...
More memorials....We walked past the Turkish service along the way too...More amazing views....Once we made it to Chunuk Bair we had some lunch and waited for the New Zealand Service to end. When it was finished we hopped back on our coach and headed back to Istanbul. The trip was only supposed to take 5 hours but it took us almost 9 hours to get back.
When we arrived back into Istanbul, it was back to the hotel for a quick shower and out for dinner and drinks for our last night in Istanbul. It was another late night with me getting back to my hotel around 5am and up again after only a couple of hours sleep!
What a day- it would definitely have to be one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life thus far. I feel happy and proud to be Australian.