Two things immediately strike you when standing at Anzac Cove: the tiny beach, and just how daunting and steep the rugged terrain is that lies ahead.
It's hard to imagine what Kiwi soldiers were thinking when they landed there a century ago.
Surges of adrenalin and the threat of being shot for cowardice or desertion might've encouraged bouts of excitement, perhaps.
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Fear, however, would predominantly have been the prime emotion, one would've thought.
The Turks, who had prepared their defences for months, were dug in with machine-gun nests and trained rifles.
They never expected the invasion to come at that stretch of beach.
So when the first Australian troops landed about 10am on April 25, they rushed ashore largely unopposed.
Things were said to be going to plan when their Kiwi comrades arrived hours later.
They were instructed to reinforce the Diggers on the high ground to the left.
Auckland Battalion came under heavy fire as they headed for the clay slopes of Walker's Ridge but soon got turned around and went up Plugge's Plateau.
For the next eight months, Anzac Cove would become the lifeline for Kiwi and Australian troops. All food, supplies, and ammunition arrived on the 800m stretch of beach.
It was about 20m wide - about the length of a cricket pitch - then.
Now, with decades of erosion, it's less than 5m wide.
Jacketed ancestral pilgrims this week paid tributes to long-lost forefathers, laying poppies at beachside gravestones.
One of them at Ari Burnu Cemetery is Henry Hayward Harrison who was shot in the neck by a Turkish sniper at Walker's Ridge while standing and smoking after being warned by colleagues to keep his head down.
He was carried down to the beach by his brother Charles Benjamin Harrison - who would later die at Chunuk Bair - and buried in a rock-covered grave.
The clear warm water of the Aegean Sea is said to be littered with the bones of missing men, shot, blown up, killed, to never be found.
Remnants of battle can still be found among the colourful stones rippled by the fresh breeze whipping in from the north-west.
Rum jug remnants are plentiful. An Australian mate snorkelled there a decade ago and found rusted bullets - some whole - which he snuck home.
Yesterday, while walking near Ari Burnu Ccemetery at Anzac Cove, I stumbled across an interesting relic.
Found among the rounded stones was a length of rusted length of metal tubing.
There is a chance it could have been a rifle barrel or machine-gun tripod.
Or it could simply have been a worthless hunk of steel with no war connections whatsoever.
I toyed with it for a while, pondering its provenance, feeling its encrusted seaweed and ragged edges.
After a while, we photographed it and placed it back where it was found.