It took us two days to ride to Canakkale where we caught another ferry to cross the bay to Eceabat on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The peninsula was a very busy holiday destination for Turkish people and we had some difficulty finding accommodation but eventually found a camping ground right on the beach. We visited Anzac Cove stopping off at two small, and not often visited, cemeteries on the way.  Next was the museum, newly built and showing videos of the history of  Turkey’s part in WW1.  This was done in 10 stages and headphones in English were available for us. We found this interesting, particularly how Turkey came to join forces with Germany and how important the battles at Gallipoli were to them to retain their independence from Russia and protect Islam. A new road has been built to cater for all the interest in the area but it is very steep as it winds its way upwards to where the battles took place and both allied and Turkish memorials and cemeteries.  Plaques were in both Turkish and English and there were good explanations of the battles.  Trenches are still visible even after almost 100 years, a couple have been reinforced with timber.  The trenches were very close to each other, about the width of the road.  Lone Pine, the largest of the Anzac cemeteries, stands near the top of the site both sides were fighting for.  Like all the others it has a sandstone monument with names of the soldiers whose bodies were never found and tombstones for those who are buried there.  There were 14,000 men whose remains were never found.  It is a very lovely but sad place.  Looking down to the beach where the Anzacs landed, now a calm beautiful holiday destination it is hard to believe that so many men died on both sides on this peninsula.  We had a swim in the beach, but the sadness we felt did not wash away.

It is not very far to the Greek border but strong winds slowed us down until we were off the peninsula and changed directions, which then gave us a tail wind, about time too.  We reached the border and again, this is our eleventh border crossing, no hassles, no scanning of our bags.  It was easier to cross the border than to enter a museum.  There was about one kilometer no man’s land from when we were stamped out of Turkey and into Greece.  This is an area where people try to enter Europe illegally, we crossed a river and both sides had mown grass and soldiers patrolling. Then we were stamped into Greece and told to go to the police in Alexandroupoli about forty kilometres away to get Heather’s visa extended.