Getting to Gallipoli peninsular on the eve of ANZAC day

Because the President's yacht was moored at Canakkele,  no water traffic was allowed.   The waterways are as rightly controlled as the roads. The military police are everywhere as are police, traffic police, soldiers of every description. We were meant to leave the ship at 2100 hrs, but had to leave at 1900 hrs because of additional security holding up the works, not to mention the fact that over 300 buses were converging on the area and every pass and passport had to be checked. ( multiple times).

 The back end of the ship as we left,  it was still docked. Those windows are the formal dining room.

Moving out on the ferry, past the ship, 40 mins of daylight left.

 Going past he main town of Canakkele.

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 The reason we went early, the President's yacht was moored at Canakkele. We arrived at the European side,  but we're not allowed to dock, meanwhile the sun went down.  We waited 90 minutes just drifting on the ferry before we could get off at the Gallipoli peninsular. By this time it was after 2200 hrs. But we were on a warm bus. The temperature dropped to 9 degrees while we waited in a queue of around 50 buses or more more than a km long to be tagged and wristbanded. Black for kiwis and yellow for Australians.  Got to the next checkpoint,  where there are toilets,  and a woman fell on the marble steps, and wound up being taken to a Turkish hospital and medivaced out.
 The NZ agent caused huge stress to all concerned as it was all under control by the ship's hospital.  Anyway I was fortunate as a Turkish soldier took pity on me and let me into a disabled convenience.  There were 2 more checkpoints,  passports and passes were checked multiple times, it was well after midnight.  We were told ANZAC cove was full, and couldn't move ordinary passholders in until those on the ground were bunched up some more (I.e. stood up). They had to wait at another park 3 km away, at least they could sit there,  many on the ground. We were fortunate enough to be transported in a van to the site and got allocated seating although we had to sit apart. It was interesting to note that much of the NZ allocated disability seating was taken up by Australians. We arrived at ANZAC cove just after 0130 hrs on ANZAC day.

 The wait to get off the ferry.

The tightly packed crowd at ANZAC cove.