DONNYBROOK’S Emily Fernley, 16, has returned from the Premier’s Anzac Student Tour in Gallipoli in April with a higher appreciation for what she has.
“It was really busy,” she said.
“There was never time that we got that was downtime, it was go the whole time. It was really physically challenging as well as emotionally challenging – some of us hadn’t been overseas before. There was different food, having to drink bottled water all the time and getting dehydrated from not realising how much you need things like water were all things we experienced.”
Miss Fernley said Turkey was very different to what she had expected.
“There was lots of poverty, which was quite confronting to see, although saying that lots of the richer places were really large and they were really nice,” she said.
“The 4.30am call to prayer was a bit different – I thought there was a fire alarm going off the first time I heard it.”
Miss Fernley said she found the whole Anzac experience at Gallipoli quite emotional.
“It could be the first and last time I will ever experience something like that,” she said.
“We conducted smaller services within our tour group and they were a lot more emotional than the centenary. It was a really emotional day to be at because you were awake from 48 hours that whole time from getting in there. It took a lot of preparation before we actually got in there.”
She said she had come away from the experience with a higher appreciation for what she has.
“I’m aware of how privileged I am to live in a country with the ability to not conform to a religion, to be open to the way I feel about things in society, and to have a freedom of rights, I took that away from going over there,” she said.
