On Saturday I completed the most holy of holy pilgrimages in the Aussie world - Gallipoli. As you can imagine the day at the battlefields that have come to symbolize the mateship and bravery of our culture had more reverence and emotion packed in than all the dawn services and Collingwood v Essendon matches combined.

We went on a really good tour of all the beaches, battlefields, cemeteries and monuments. There are remnants of the trenches where you can easily imagine the bravery and courage of our soldiers as they pointlessly ran towards the Turk lines sacrificing themselves to 'greater' the British empire. From ANZAC cove you can see the island off the coast where the cowardly incompetent general Hamilton drank cups of tea as he delivered the orders which in the end killed 260 000 men for no reason.

Earlier that morning I watched Collingwood win their second premiership in my lifetime which was the best. When I get home I'm going to get a membership to make sure I get to see us win the flag again next year.

Previously in Istanbul we marveled at the huge mosques and the even bigger donar kebabs. A major highlight was probably the greatest human structure of all time - the Aya Sofia. It deserves the greatest tag due to its age. Built in 537 AD it was the biggest christian cathedral in the world for over 1000 years. It's dome and arches can be compared with St Peters in Rome even though it precedes the grandest building in the Vatican by over a millennia.

Another highlight was viewing what's believed to be the staff that parted the Red Sea. Yep we took a gander at Moses' stick. Next to this was King David's sword, Joseph's (as in the technicolored dream coat) turban, Abraham's cooking pot, John the Baptists arm and scull and the prophet Mohamed's cloak, flag, sword, beard shavings, toe nail and foot print.

Yesterday we wandered around the ancient ruins of Ephesus. The massive marble theatre which could seat 25 000 people, along with the column lined streets, are a fantastic open air museum depicting what life was like in Roman times 2000 years ago. You think the apostle Paul dressed in some sort of white toga could wander out of the surrounding biblical landscape of rocky hills and into the town any second, but unfortunately it's just another fat American tourist.

Turkey is a top country. The buses are first class with built-in personal entertainment TVs in the backs of the seats. We head back to the Mediterranean coast on another first class bus tomorrow - can't wait...