ANZAC cove, the dawn ceremony.

At 0530 hrs the first light was still a half hour away,  and dawn an hour away. This was run by the military,  so was perfectly on time.We all NZ and Australians were all together, officially 10500, but with all the volunteers there were many more.

 Pictures from the Dawn ceremony,  note it slowly gets lighter.

 The parade of warships. I counted 8 but there could have been more.

 The Azamara Journey came within half mile of shore. I imagine that the Turkish authorities would have something to say!

The huge crowd. 

The speeches were all quite good, John Key's one was well presented,  better than Tony Abbot. HRH Prince of Wales also came across well.  It wasn't until the end that the national anthems were sung I was stunned to realise John Key did not sing the national anthem. I was quite shocked by this.Maybe he wants to change that as well as the flag! Tony Abbott sang the Australian anthem. 

it is interesting that everyone who went there I spoke to wants to keep our flag as it is. But anyone interested in Gallipoli certainly would. I had  my flag there and so did many others.

It took over an hour after the vips had left to get everyone out of the commemorative site. I think know we were all a little creaky with the cold. It was truly amazing and an extremely emotional experience.