We're quickly into a routine - woken by the call to prayer from the Imam (accompanied by the howling of dogs) just before 6am, breakfast at 7, off to the battlefield at 8.30, an hours break for lunch which we have on site, back to the accommodation around 4.30pm, record keeping, documentation and correspondence before dinner at 7, and then more record keeping, documentation and correspondence until bed beckons at about 10pm. It's a long tiring day, but everyone ...

After a morning of meetings on Friday, the main one of which was with out Turkish colleagues, and having received our permits we started fieldwork in the afternoon. It was hot out there - 29 degrees when we returned to the bus at about 4pm - and we were working in an area that received no cooling sea breeze We worked in the Lone Pine area not far from the Memorial. The road that goes up to the heights passes close by and they've cleared an area adjacent to thi...

We started the day confident that we would be ready to start fieldwork by the time it was over. We had to get out final permits, collect the material that's kept at the local Australian Consulate that we use in our fieldwork and replenish it as necessary, and meet up with our Turkish colleagues to discuss the program for the season. We achieved the first two, altough we don't actually receive the permits until first thing tomorrow. We didn't achieve the third ...

I caught the train at Berry in time to meet another team member at the check in at Mascot. He had my passport and visa as the latter wasn't issued until last Friday and it was too risky to send it down to the Valley before I departed. I got a little nervous when he told me by SMS that his plane had been delayed. But as it turned out we arrived within half an hour of each other. I must say it was a relief to have the passport in my hot little hand! We arrived...