We start with Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War at Te Papa Tongarewa and queue for 30 minutes. Not bad for a public holiday. Peter Jackson's Weta Workshops was involved, creating eight silicone figures, two-and-a-half times life size, based on actual participants in the campaign. The installations and visuals are very impressive.
With narration from the individuals depicted, one gains a real sense and personal insight of how grim the situation must have been. Visuals describe territory gained and then soon lost again by decisions made by individuals.
It highlights the futility with so many lives lost over such a short period, and the eventual retreat. One of the most innovative pieces is an X-ray image of the body and what happens when it is struck by bullets, shrapnel or a bomb blast. This is followed by records of a survivor and a fatality.
We gain a sense of the stench, the foul food, not to mention the "latrine scene", which needs no further description, of what the reality of daily life must have been like.
Lives lost from artillery of their own - I gain a sense of chaos, horror and tragedy. This exhibition is very moving.
We agree we will return at a later date to take the time to be able to absorb more detail. We also agree to leave a day in between before visiting the The Great War Exhibition at the Dominion Museum. On our last day we make our way to the museum at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.
The building has been dedicated to this exhibition. We learn that roofs were lifted and floors reinforced so that a crane could drop a huge piece of artillery into place with a clearance of only a couple of inches. The Great War Exhibition, created by Sir Peter Jackson, commemorates the role played by New Zealand in World War I.
We joined a guided tour and our guide Ramon was excellent. He was able to draw stories of the journey through the war, year by year.
Ramon starts the tour by describing to us the origins of WWI. The heads of state of Britain, Germany and Russia - George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II - were first cousins who knew one another very well.
The events leading up to the conflict are "a study in the envy, insincerity, festering rancour and muddle that only families can manage". And from this WWI began.
Ramon says many of us are unaware that most soldiers who survived WWI died within 20 years of the war ending. About two-thirds of military deaths in WWI were in battle, unlike the conflicts that took place in the 19th century when the majority of deaths were due to disease.
We walk through the Gallipoli exhibition in the Dominion building where photos have been colour-enhanced, which make the scenes look a little more real.
We learn that the museum is developing its next phase of the exhibition The Trench Experience, which will provide the chance to immerse ourselves in the sights, sounds and smells of trench warfare.
As Goobs and I make our way home, we agree to return one day. There is so much to take in, one needs to allow time to absorb the information.
These exhibitions are both very clever and very moving. I finish with Peter Jackson's words, "It is not an anti-war museum, it's certainly not a glorifying war museum. It's just showing reality."
- Ana Apatu is CEO of the U-Turn Trust, based at Te Aranga Marae in Flaxmere.
