In Their Footsteps (Gully Ravine Trek)

From the earliest days of the campaign, with British forces trying to push there way forward up the steep wash away that became known as Gully Ravine and Turkish defenders trying to drive them back, this area was the scene of heavy fighting, much at close quarters. Our half day walking tour takes you over some of the sites of this fighting, letting you feel the atmosphere of the narrow and forbidding Gully Ravine, just as those men who served here did in 1915.

The walking component of this two is in two parts, covering the northern mouth of Gully Ravine and the lower part of the ravine and its upper reaches where the final front line lay at the end of 1915, with a short drive between the two areas.

Among the sites visited during the tour are:

• Gully Beach, the mouth of Gully Ravine where it opens out onto the Aegean Sea. Soon after its capture in late April, Gully Beach became the centre for operations inside the ravine, with headquarters, supply depots, medical posts and reserves all located in and around the area. Traces of these sites can still be found today and will be covered during our tour.
• Wreck of a British landing craft. Just off the shore at Gully Beach is another reminder of the campaign, the wreck of a British landing craft that ran ashore on the night of January 8–9 1916, in the last hours of the evacuation of the Helles sector.
• A British made well. One of the greatest difficulties faced by the Allied troops was a shortage of water, with engineers sinking wells wherever possible to try and ease the shortage. One of these original wells, which is still in use, can be found inside Gully Ravine.
• Border Barricade, one of the final British advance positions deep inside Gully Ravine itself, overlooked on both sides by Turkish positions.
• Fusilier Bluff, where the final advance of the British forces was halted and the front lines settled to the end of the campaign, with some of craters left from underground explosions still visible today.
• Ziğindere Cemetery, site of a Turkish field hospital in 1915 that was destroyed by Allied shelling.