Anzac Day (day 42)

Anzac Day is when the Kiwis and Aussies commemorate their lost in Gallipoli, 95 years ago.  To quote from the NZ Government Guide Website:

"For nine months in 1915, British and French forces battled the Ottoman Empire - modern Turkey - for control of the Gallipoli peninsula, a small finger of Europe jutting into the Aegean Sea that dominates a strategic waterway, the Dardanelles. By opening the Dardanelles to their fleets, the Allies hoped to threaten the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul) and knock the Turks out of the war.

Among the British forces were the Anzacs - the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps - who landed on the peninsula on 25 April. The landing, like the Gallipoli campaign itself, was ambitious and ultimately unsuccessful: the peninsula remained in its defenders' hands.

The campaign was a costly failure for the Allies: 44,000 British and French soldiers died, including over 8,700 Australians. Among the dead were 2,721 New Zealanders - roughly one-quarter of those who fought on Gallipoli. Victory came at a high price for the Turks: 87,000 men died in the campaign which became a defining moment in Turkish history.

The Gallipoli campaign was a relatively minor part of the First World War (1914-18), but it has great significance for New Zealand's history and it has become an important symbol of its national identity.  The campaign was the first time that New Zealand stepped on to the world stage, and the New Zealanders made a name for themselves fighting hard, against the odds, in an inhospitable environment.

New Zealand marks the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings each year on Anzac Day - 25 April - remembering not only those who died there, but all who have served the country in times of war. The Gallipoli battlefields are now part of the 33,000 hectare Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, or the Peace Park."

Anzac Day is clearly very important to the Kiwis.  As stated above, they lost 2,271 men, which sounds very few compared with the number the British or French who died, but in proportion to the size of the country was significant.  I was surprised to see that nowadays, on Anzac Day, 95 years after the Gallipoli landings, the Kiwis nearly all wear poppies, just as we do on Remembrance Day.  But somehow it seems more important to them.  I was in a small town on the way up to Nelson and, whilst having coffee, the whole town was waiting for the church service to end and the procession to begin.  I was similarly struck on the previous day in the tiny beach side town of Okarito.  This town sported a large war memorial, yet the town seemed to have no more than thirty or so houses.  The mystery was solved when I subsequently discovered that the town had previously had a population of 14,000, when it supported the gold mining community in the region, over a century ago.

What did piss me off a bit is that the restaurants all charge a surcharge of 15 to 20 percent for serving food on Anzac Day.  This actually applies on all public holidays, not just Anzac Day, and is to cover the additional staff costs on public holidays.  I’ve never known any other country to do this.

Enough of the rambling.  Today I drove up from Franz Joseph Glacier to Nelson, some 400km.  For the trip to Greymouth, I had two girls for company, a Mexican and a Russian.  Soon after I dropped them of at Greymouth, I picked up an interesting German couple who were hitch-hiking to Golden Bay and who were spending five months in New Zealand.  She was an English teacher and spoke almost perfect English.  He was a sports instructor by profession, but a rock climber by nature.  I dropped them off some way short of Nelson.

When I got to my hotel, I found that out that I had a whole apartment, bedroom, bathroom, living/dining room and kitchen, just for me.  Since I didn't want to drink and drive, I ate dinner in the on-site restaurant, The Orangery.  The food was actually rather good, especially the King Fish on a base of risotto, which I subsequently found out, on questioning the chef, to be flavoured with beetroot, onion, apple, cumin and vinegar. 

I was a bit pissed off with the pretension of it all.  "Do you have a reservation, Sir?" when the restaurant was half empty and almost completely deserted by the time I left.  I decided to make a list of the ten things I least like about restaurants and here it is, in reverse order.

10    Restaurants that serve red wine (or worse still port) chilled.
9    Seats that are too low.
8    Background music where the vocals are second-hand copies of the original.
7    Pretentious descriptions for food, as in “A skin-bound melange of ground pork, herbs and spices, nestling against a background of home-creamed potatoes”, instead of “bangers and mash”.
6    Waiters who insist on pouring the wine.
5    Waitresses who say “Not a problem” (or even worse, "No worries") as in “How is your food?”, “Very nice, thank you”, “Not a problem”.  Or even worse, as happened tonight: “Is everything still going all right?”, “Yes, thank you”, “Not a problem”.
4    People who let their mobile phones ring in restaurants.
3    Amuse bouches, that don’t.
2    People who answer their mobile phones in restaurants.
1    Germans.

I asked the waitress, in the nicest possible way, of course, why she always said ”Not a problem” and she really had no idea.  It’s just the way she talks.  Much like supermarket checkout girls used to say “Have a nice day”.  It seems to me it’s just a fad, the way Queenslanders always used to end each sentence with an upwards inflexion, as if it were a question.  But this seems to have gone out of fashion, at least judging from the Queenslanders I’ve met recently.

In my list of things that I don’t like about restaurants, I should have added waitresses who bring me the bill before I’ve asked for it.  It’s like they just can’t wait to get rid of you.  This time I had the last laugh on them, though.  After they’d brought the bill, I ordered a coffee and they forgot to add it to the bill.  Yeah.

When I left, I thought I’d wind up the waitress a bit more, so, when I paid the bill, I said “You don’t know who I am, do you?”  She suddenly looked really interested and said “No.o..o, who are you?”  I said “My name’s on the card”.  I should have added “I don’t know you either”, to make it clear to her what was happening, but I left her wondering.  What a sick bastard I am.

Tomorrow I’m off to the north of the South Island, to Golden Bay, in fact.  It’s supposed to be really beautiful, so watch this space for an update.