Erosion eating away Gallipoli trenches

New Zealand soldiers, believed to be from the Wellington Mounted Rifles occupying a trench on Table Top during the night of August 6, 1915, as they prepare for the attack on Chunuk Bair. Picture / James Cornelius Read / Alexander Turnbull Library

The trenches and tunnels of Gallipoli are being surveyed and recorded, as erosion eats away at them.

Ministry for Culture and Heritage historian Ian McGibbon is part of a battlefield archeological project we're working on with Australia and Turkey.

He says some of the trench systems are still quite intact, including the barbed wire.

Dr McGibbon says being there gives a real sense of what it might have been like for the Anzacs, dealing with things like the heat."We're drinking a bottle of water every half hour.

The troops that were here would have been lucky to get a bottle of a day.

Of course we don't have the smell of corpses and flies, and nobody is shooting at you or trying to kill you."Dr McGibbon will soon head back for the final phase of the project which will focus on the areas around Anzac Cove.