Gallipoli

Finishing on a slightly more sombre note, we ended our Turkish trip with a visit to Gallipoli.

We umm’d and ahhh’d about doing this tour. We've both always wanted to but it was fairly pricey, we weren’t sure how good the guide would be (sadly I’m a bit of a tour-guide snob, I expect quite a lot) and it was a 10 hour round-trip bus ride.

I’m so so so glad we went.

It was painfully hot - so being in an air-conditioned bus certainly wasn’t a bad way to spend part of the day and far more importantly the tour itself, was excellent.

Our guide was a lovely, quirky Turkish guy who visited the area 7 years ago, fell in love with the history of the place and decided to stay and learn all he could. His tour was incredibly informative, really very detailed and specific with lots of dates and statistics and stories, but at the same time he made it easy to follow how events unfolded, what a series of monumental cock-ups the whole thing really was, how brave the soldiers were, on both sides and how tragic and pointless the whole battle was. He also made it clear how important Gallipoli is in terms of national identity for both the ANZACs and the Turks.

An Anzac legend. For nearly 4 weeks John Simpson and his famous donkey (actually donkeys, there were more than one) carried wounded soldiers from the front line, down what was called "Shrapnel Gully" to the beach so they could receive medical treatment.

Where the ANZACs landed.

The Anzac Day dawn service is held here. It must be incredible.

Lone Pine Memorial

A breath-takingly beautiful stretch of coastline.


A very moving experience.

From: For the Fallen

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

Aqua

To finish the Turkey photos.

Blogger was being a sloppy slut-face yesterday and wouldn’t let me upload the last two lots of holiday photos.

It would let me blog about serious issues though.

Pakistan Floods? Unresolved Election in Australia? Timmy Chilean Miners trapped down a mine-shaft? Sarkosy’s expulsion of the Roma from France? The building of a Mosque near Ground Zero.

Nah.

I blog about Taylor Momson and whether the fact that I have been listening to her song non-stop, despite the fact that I think she’s a jackass, makes me an even bigger jackass.
(I have decided that yes, yes it does. But I’m cool with it.)

I’ve also been listening to Florence and the Machine’s “Cosmic Love” on almost non-stop repeat if that redeems me from lame-ass-purgatory a bit?

No?

Fine then. I’ll be over here with all the other Emo-tweens.


So moving on – sorry if you’re sick of holiday snaps by-the-by, but ... well ... there’s that little X button in the top right corner if you don’t like it!

Where are we up to?

Ah yes.

After the Kayak trip we had one blissful, beautiful, clean night in Fethiye at a gorgeous hotel with a pool that I seriously needed to spend some more time with, but we pushed on down the coast to Kas.

Kas was really, really ridiculously good looking. A gorgeous little town and our hotel was charming and brilliantly managed – the owner went above and beyond to help us and made our stay so enjoyable.

Except for his giant FAIL when it came to recommendations for Turkish Baths.

But other than that, he was tops.

Kas

Ancient Amphitheater just near our hotel

We went on two day trips from Kas. Both were exceptional,

The first was to the stunning little Greek island of Megisti.

So beautiful. Incredibly, baking hot hot hot that day but we had a few swims in the insanely gorgeous aqua water and had a seafood lunch sitting on the harbour – which included a chat to the fisherman responsible for our delicious meal and a surprise visit by a huge sea turtle. Groovy huh!?

On the ferry heading to the islands.

Bean bags? - It's GENIUS. 

The gorgeousosity was at an all time high here. 

(Yes mum, I know that isn't a real word. 

Please don't send me another email paying me out about my shitehouse spelling!)

Not a bad spot for a bit of lunch!

The second trip was a day spent on a gullet boat cruising around the “Turquoise Riviera”.

Little islands, protected bays for snorkelling, a bbq lunch, a sunken city and lots of lazing about on the top deck added up to a pretty perfect day.

You’ll be pleased to know I continued my proud tradition of jumping in the water and losing things (Glasses in Croatia and then again in the pool in Bali – retrieved both times fortunately) This time I accidently dropped my snorkel and mask as I was diving in and I kinda forgot that they sink, so was mightily annoyed when I couldn’t find them bobbing about on top of the water. Found them on the bottom though! Hehe.

Entering the "Pirate's Cave"

Johnny Depp wasn't in there. 

I felt cheated.

The sunken city of Kekova

This. 

This. This This.

The next day was Turkish Bath Torture which you can read about here.

And then a private car transfer to Dalaman Airport. Which was all going well until the car overheated and we were left on the side of the road waiting for a replacement car ...

We did get there eventually and it was back to Istanbul for us and back to a cold and wet Adelaide for Katie.

One more to come!

Go Fug Yourself to the rescue

There has been a timely response to my conundrum from yesterday.


To refresh:

Is the fact that Taylor Momson is a gigantic bag of re-fried douchey-ness a solid enough reason to hate her song on principle?


The genius girls over at Go Fug Yourself have posted this little gem about our favourite 17 year old who dresses like a "high-class hooker" (that's TM describing her look in her own words.)

High class?

Bitch please.



Anyway - go read the GFY article.


Snarky.

Funny.

What's wrong with me?

Ok. So I have a little confession to make.

Taylor Momsen.

AKA Little Jenny Humphrey in Gossip Girl.



Or, if you will, Cindy Lou Who in The Grinch

The cuteness here is insane

She has turned into a giant douche-bag - non?

The Courtney-Love-wanna-be look, the raccoon eye make-up, the lack of underwear, the questionable hygiene and her whole "I'm an artist, a musician, I am cooler than you" 'tude make me want to hurl.

Shut up, sit down and wash your face you stupid 17 year old.

Man I sound old and curmudgeonly don't I?


But she deserves it:

Apparently when asked about the Haiti earthquake by OK! Taylor had this to say:

Um, right now I’m trying to just finish my record and getting through the last season of Gossip Girl for right now. So not so much thinking about that.

Sorry Haiti, sucks to be you, but I'm, like, super busy - applying all that eyeliner takes, like a lot of effort.




However ..... and this is where it gets awkward ...

Her song with her band "The Pretty Reckless"????

..... I... umm... I kinda like it. Yes it's Emo-tastic and the film clip is cringe-worthy.

But yeah. The song is damn catchy. I like it - there I said it.

Am I going to hypocrite's hell now?

Yeah. Fo sure.




So - let me know - am I going insane? Has the sun melted my sense of taste?
Is she actually terrible and I can't tell? Cause that would be disturbing.

Maybe .... you could just listen without watching?? The eyeshadow - it's distracting.

And then let me know. Am I a lost cause?




I think I know the answer to that already.
Be gentle.

xx

Sea Kayaking

Those that know me well know that I am not one to normally sign up for outdoor adventure activities.

Oh, sure, I love camping and don't mind 'roughing it' one bit - but add serious physical exertion- like hiking - on top of that? No thanks!

Indeed, usually I have to be dragged kicking and screaming by my captor/husband and forced up and down mountains, growing more and more hostile and plotting revenge against all hikers and their evil bretheren.

Sea kayaking wasn't like this at all. 

I was genuinely excited about this trip. A little nervous about whether my rock solid arm guns and core strength would be up to the physical challenge, being that my guns are more like 80 year old Bingo Wings and my core is made of marshmallow (mmm, marshmallows).

For some reason though, water activities don't stress me out.

For one thing - I'm a strong swimmer and can't actually drown due to my oft mentioned awesome floating abilities.

Also, I don't feel like I'm going to overheat and die when in/on water, so that's a bonus.

And finally - kayaking = sitting. All good with me. 


The trip was brilliant - a mixture of easy, tranquil paddling and some much harder, slightly hairier stuff through waves.

Plenty of snorkeling (which Engin, our tour leader pronounced in a rather Borat way as "schhhhnorkeling" as in "Today we stop here, yes? and for afterwards we will do zee schhhhnorkeling". So funny. 

Beautiful, remote scenery, the clearest most beautiful water and secluded, private camping spots.

 Setting off on the first morning - this is actually the sea, not a lake

 Stopping for a quick swim

 And stopping for lunch

 

 A slightly odd place to pull the kayaks up, but we were rewarded with awesome scchhhhhnorkeling

Camp spot the first night. K clearly very excited

 Heading off the next morning

 The beautiful, clear, aqua water we were paddling on/swimming in

 2nd day lunch spot

 A visit to the famous "Cleopatra Beach"

Nothing to do with the Egyptian lady herself, this amazing sand is called "Cleopatra Sand"

 

Turkish people come from miles around to see this famous beach and its sand.

This photo was taken towards the end of the day and was apparently very quiet.

ok. I totes love swimming with 300 of my closest friends.

Except you aren't actually allowed to touch the sand, or walk on it. 

Definitely not allowed to lie on it. 

There is a guy on duty - not a lifeguard, hell no - if you drown that's your own business.

He is there to stop people from walking on the precious sand.

Weird. Especially for 3 Aussies. 

We were peppering Engin with questions "is the sand magical?"

No

"Is it meant to have healing properties?"

No

"so it's just sand then?"

Yes

"riii-iiight......."

umm. Dudes. It's just sand.

 The gullet tour boats filled with people who came to see the sand.

 We don't need no gullet boats, we paddled here ourselves thank you very much.

 Camp spot on night # 2

Our bed. Looks super comfy right?

Wrong.

 Before sunrise on day #3

 Watching the sun come up

 Preparing ourselves for the final day

Last snorkeling spot

We finished off in the afternoon and then had to jump on a local bus - stinky, dirty and exhausted - to get to Fethiye. 

On the bus - which was mercifully air-conditioned - my arms were burning. 

So I said to M "this is weird, I'm cool to the touch but my arms feel like they're on FIRE"

He quirked an eyebrow at me and said in his best my-wife-is-retarded voice "Yes, that's called muscle burn, it's what happens when you use your muscles a lot"

Huh. Muscle Burn. using muscles a lot. Weird.

Overall an absolute winner. Highly recommended. 

And goddamn - the shower that night was the best I've ever had. 

xx