Solemn service for fallen

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When backpackers Clare Kemys and Nick Sparrow left on their OE, going to the dawn service at Gallipoli was their biggest aspiration.

Many of the young Kiwis and Aussies who usually cover the historic coastline on Anzac Day are absent this year, deterred by the cost of air tickets or stymied by the volcanic ash cloud that shut down air routes.

But, after a long night with a tarpaulin in case it rains on the slopes at Anzac Cove, Kemys and Sparrow will today achieve their goal.

Originally from Tauranga, the pair are now based in the United Kingdom.

They made their way to Eceabat - the nearest town to the Gallipoli Peninsula battlefields - by sea and land, after a trip around the Greek Islands.

The two young Kiwis visited the battlegrounds and cemeteries yesterday, listening to letters from soldiers read out at each site. The letters brought the war alive, Sparrow said.

Like many, Kemys does not know if any of her family fought in the war for the Dardanelles.

"But you should do it. I think everybody should. It's the one thing I really wanted to do on the OE."

The hotels and backpackers in Canakkale and Eceabat are full of such pilgrims from New Zealand and Australia, who are largely staying quiet.

Security was tightened after concerns a few years ago that intoxicated service-goers were ruining the solemnity of it.

Other controversies included a proposal for singers like Australia's John Farnham to play overnight - a plan ditched in favour of a more "reflective" programme including documentaries and classical music blended into a Gallipoli Symphony, to play at the centenary in 2015.

Prime Minister John Key spoke at the Turkish international ceremony, the first of many he will attend before the end of Anzac Day.

He said New Zealand's focus on what was a small campaign in a larger war had led to the incorrect impression that it was only the Anzacs and British who fought there.

He went on to pay tribute to other countries, saying the fighters had also included Moroccans, Ghurkas and Newfoundlanders.

The campaign was of tragic significance to Turkey and a defining moment in its history.

Key said a mutual respect was forged in the battle that had turned into friendship.

Several veterans of other wars are also be attending. One of them, Bill Taare, doesn't usually talk much about his time in the infantry and SAS in Vietnam, Malaya and Borneo. "I get too emotional."

But on Anzac Day he opens up. "I've always gone to Anzac Parades for my friends who were killed, and I knew quite a few of them. My very best friend was killed and is still buried in Malaysia."

So when the dawn service begins at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli this afternoon, Taare will be there to remember not only his grandfather who served in that war but also his friends who fell on shores far from that peninsula by the Dardanelles.