Warwick and Catherine Mitchell pictured on the summit of Chunuk Bair on the Gallipoli Peninsula today. Photo / Alan Gibson
Halfway up the steep, dusty track, the Anzacs came to a halt.
Word was relayed that there was a bottleneck ahead at Lone Pine.
And then the New Zealanders were told to overtake their Australian cousins and push on for the higher peak of Chunuk Bair.
A stretcher-bearer rushed downhill.
"He's probably a Kiwi, let them carry him," one digger jibed.
"Just leave him, mate," another chimed in.
That's when the sheep jokes started.
It had been a long, cold night on the Gallipoli Peninsula so the Kiwis let them off.
Warwick and Catherine Mitchell didn't mind.
After the tears of the centenary commemoration's Dawn Service had dried, they joined thousands of other Antipodean pilgrims walking up Artillery Rd - one of the main supply routes to the Anzac frontline a century ago.
They were in no rush. They wanted to take in the land. Study rum jug fragments littering the path. Get mocked for saying 'fish n chips' funny.
Mr Mitchell's great uncle George Myles Woolhouse landed on April 25, 1915 with the Canterbury Infantry Battalion. Thirteen days later, he was killed fighting at Twelve Tree Copse.
Mr Mitchell, a 59-year-old military history buff, had brought his bagpipes all the way to Turkey.
He hoped to play a lament at the grave of his great uncle.
"I simply want to pay my respects and say thank you... Oh, you'll get me weeping, mate..."
From Half Moon Bay in Auckland, the Mitchells organise tours to the Western Front every year.
But this was their first trip to Gallipoli.
On the walk up, they tell how their shared interests - battlefield tours, choral singing, gardening (they even car pool to work every morning) - have formed the basis of a happy 36-year marriage.
When the Mitchells were researching their family tree, they found a name was missing.
Mrs Mitchell found a Woolhouse with a matching birth date on Auckland War Memorial Museum's online cenotaph.
They researched his story and found the missing link to their family story.
Woolhouse was one of seven brothers from the West Coast of the South Island who went to fight in World War I.
The 22-year-old bugler died at Gallipoli, while his brother Edward was killed at the Western Front.
The Mitchell family's return a century on was an emotional one.
"Just being here is incredibly spiritual for me," Mr Mitchell said.
"As the day goes on, I'm getting quite overwhelmed, I can tell you... Yet, with all the people, and everything going on, it still feels very peaceful here."
