A bright sunny day at Anzac Cove

We spent an afternoon touring the major Anzac sites around the Gallipoli Peninsula in conditions so deceptively calm, bright and still that one might have been tempted to strip off for a dip at Anzac Cove. Nothing doing. Hasan, our very knowledgeable local guide, painted a graphic word picture of the conditions those hapless Diggers endured as they struggled ashore in pre-dawn darkness. We also left with renewed respect for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the brilliant young Ottoman Turkish officer who defied the conventional wisdom of his superiors to confront the invaders and force them into a grinding, unwinnable stalemate.