My Anzac Day 2015

Being Australian, commemorating Anzac Day every year is important to me. I always go to services back home and this year was no different. It was extra special this year being the 100 year anniversary of our soldiers landing in Gallipoli and starting the Anzac story we share with our New Zealand comrades.

After missing out on tickets to the Gallipoli service I decided to book a Topdeck trip on the Western Front. The four-day trip toured through Belgium and France and traced the stories of the Anzacs through the battles they fought there in the Great War.

Tyne Cot Cemetery

The Topdeck team did a great job at personalising the trip for our group so many people got to visit the burial sites and memorials for their family. We also voted as a group to change the itinerary to let us go to the New Zealand service in the afternoon after the main service Anzac Day morning was very Australian-focused. I'm glad we did because I now want to go to a service on New Zealand turf when I'm next in that corner of the globe.

After the Dawn Service

The dawn service we went to was held at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
It was very much celebrating the relationship formed between Australia and France. It was nice to hear this side of the story and to also feel the gratitude from the French people.

Unknown soldiers in beautiful graves.

The memorials and cemeteries are all impeccably well-kept. My mum gave me a relative's name to search for, but I knew nothing else about him. The records are simple enough to navigate that I was able to find my relative who died in France. His body was either not recovered from the battlefield or if it was it lies in a grave unidentified, as his name is engraved on a memorial to the missing. It was a very special moment.

Me with my relative on a memorial to the missing

I always thought Anzac Day was important to me because I come from a military family, but on this trip I learnt it's important to me because without the sacrifices those men (and their families) made it's very likely I simply wouldn't be Australian today.