Twelve high school students from New South Wales are this week walking in the steps of ANZAC troops in the sacred fields of Gallipoli and Greece.
The students are visiting the battlefields where the Anzac troops fought and will pay their respects at memorials. The students are travelling as part of the Premier’s ANZAC Memorial Scholarship program, which started in 2009 to provide an opportunity for students to travel to sites associated with the Anzac tradition. The students, who were selected from schools across NSW, also received detailed briefings from tour historian Brad Manera.
The two-week pilgrimage will include visits to Istanbul, Cannakale, Gallipoli, Athens and the towns of Heraklion, Canea-Suda Bay and Rethimno on the Island of Crete. The group will visit memorials, cemeteries and battlefields, and scatter the ashes of stars of remembrance at a number of sites where Anzac soldiers fell. On their return, the students are required to produce an essay, poem, musical composition or painting to represent their experience.
