Just over 100 years since the Australia's infamous Gallipoli landing in Turkey during World War I, Gallipoli High School sent its own contingent of young representatives down under to feed kangaroos, watch footy, and learned how to cook Anzac biscuits.
Ballarat man Ian Simpkin is no ordinary retired teacher. He is a keen Anzac historian and travels to Melbourne one day a week to volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Ballarat sent around 4,000 men to WW I. 730 served of them at Gallipoli and 160 lost their lives there - 15 of them on landing day.
The 8th Battalion AIF, which included many soldiers from Ballarat, repelled four counter attacks on 26 April 1915. By December of that year 127 Ballarat men had died in Gallipoli.
The town is home to an arch and an Avenue of Honour with trees on both sides with the names of every man and woman who served in WWI.
Mr Simpkin’s uncle, Leslie William Simpkin, served as a field ambulance officer.
“I remember his stories he told about his time in Turkey and the Middle East, and his admiration for the Turkish soldiers and the way they conducted themselves, I am sure he would have spent time looking after wounded Australian and Turkish soldiers,” Mr Simpkin tells SBS Turkish.
Mr Simpkin travelled to Gallipoli in 2000. After the trip, he and his colleague Steve Biggin decided to establish a sister school project between a school from Gallipoli and their school, Mount Clear Collage.
Gallipoli high school students pose in front of the Sydney Opera House during their visit to Australia, before they then traveled to Ballarat Source: Supplied
He wrote to the Turkish Embassy in Canberra to ask for help to find a Turkish school in Gallipoli. Eight months later he got his answer: Mount Clear Collage would become a sister school to Gallipoli High School, a Turkish school with an English language program.
Students from Mount Clear Collage first visited Gallipoli as in 2002 and Ballarat students have visited there seven times since. They stay with Turkish families and spend time with students and on the battlefield.
"Teenage boys are pretty much the same no matter what country they come from."
Gallipoli High School students have visited Ballarat twice. It is very expensive for them to come to Australia.
"This year we thought, let’s see if we can raise some money as a group, as a community, to bring them out from Turkey," says Simpkin.
Subsequently, he says, "This year was the first visit from students from Gallipoli high school since 2006."
Through their fundraising activities, they came across the Honorary President of the Australian Turkish Business Council, Huseyin Mustafa and eight students and two teachers came to Australia sponsored by the ATBC.
The group was welcomed in Sydney by Ian Simpkin and Steve Biggin. Two days later they arrived in Ballarat.
Science fun at Mt Clear College Source: Supplied
Gallipoli High School students Bora and Bortay stayed with the Parkinson family. Deborah Parkinson tells SBS Turkish her son, Mount Clear Collage student Liam, went to Gallipoli as part of the sister school visit project and stayed with a Turkish family in 2015.
“We wanted to return their hospitality,” Parkinson says.
As to the what significant cultural learnings the family picked up during their visitors stay, "I have three teenage boys myself," Parkinson says.
"I discovered teenage boys are pretty much the same no matter what country they come from."
Two of the Turkish boys were archery and pistol shooting champions in Turkey. They went to the Ballarat archery and pistol shooting clubs and got some local experience.
The Turkish teenagers fed kangaroos in the Grampians - something they say they were "dying" to do.
They visited local ANZAC historical places, including the Shrine of Remembrance, and went to Sovereign Hill to learn about Australia’s gold rush. They also went for a surf and did some hiking at Mt Williams.
Gallipoli high school students feed the kangaroos at Ballarat Wildlife Park Source: Supplied
Another big highlight - after kangaroo feeding - was watching the Hawthorn Adelaide AFL clash at MCG, from a corporate box. They asked a lot of questions about footy and its rules.
“I felt very special for the first time in my life in that corporate box,” said Efe Gurkan Maras, a year 10 student at Gallipoli High. “When I return to Turkey, I will form a footy team with my friends."
"It’s an 18 players game but probably we will play with 13 players.”
Turkish Students bought “egg balls” (what the Turks called a football, suggesting a ball with the wrong shape) to take back home.
kamila practises her ausie rules kicking skills at car park. Source: Supplied
Footy coach and host Steve Biggin trained the group. “We encouraged them to play a little bit of footy. We trained them whenever we found the opportunity, even in the car park” Ian Simpkin said.
Another highlight was a visit to the 22 km Avenue of Honour and Arch of Victory in Ballarat. The highway is lined with 2500 trees with name plates in front of each tree for each of the men and women from Ballarat who served in WW1. “The kids from Turkey were very interested and respected the whole thing” said Mr Simpkin. “We tried to mix tourist activities and aspects of WW1.”
Nilgun Aygar is one of the Turkish teachers who travelled to Australia with the group . She says it was very emotional to see trees planted for every Anzac soldier who died in Gallipoli.
The group received a very warm welcome from the 1200 students of Mt Clear Collage. They attended classes and exchanged experiences for two days. Australian students performed dance and music for them. Gifts were exchanged.
Year 12 student Serdar Bortay Maras been to seven other countries before. “This is the best country I have ever been to. They prepared very nice activities for us at the school. We were thrilled with the warmth they showed us,” he said.
The 12-night tour finished all too quickly. Nilgun Aygar told SBS just before their departure that her students missed their families. “But I can see it won’t be easy to leave here tomorrow. I don’t know when we will come back again but I know we have friends here,” she said.
Year 12 student Hilal Alkan acknowledged it isn’t an easy task to host someone you don’t know for a week, but people were very nice to them. “It was very different to speak in English all the time at home” she acknowledges though.
Mert at Target Source: Supplied
Efe Gurkan Maras has mixed feelings. He found leaving Australia would be hard. “But I also feel happy to be going back to Turkey. We come from Gallipoli. It’s an honour for us to come to Australia. I’ll be the coolest among my friends," he says.
Year 10 student Kamilla Sayfullina has already decided to come back to Australia for her tertiary education.
The group left Australia on Saturday, 22 July.
The following Thursday, Deborah Parkinson received an email from Bortay: “It’s not like yours of course, but I baked them," read the note.
Attached was a photo of home-baked Anzac biscuits.
in the classroom Source: suppled
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Anzac soldier’s handkerchief reunited with his family a century on