Step one - Getting to Canakkale
In all our research and just by physically looking at the map. We deemed the best jumping off point to be the town of Canakkale on the other side of the dardanelles.
This is a common place to begin the journey. The town itself is built up enough to offer a lot of comfort. Although still local enough to feel like your melting into the culture!
We flew into Istanbul and caught a bus down to Canakkale using a company called Kamel Koc. They were the only bus company we felt comfortable booking online ($26 AUD per person).
These buses have comfortable seats, TV’s In the back of the headrests and serve you drinks and food. See what a Kamel Koc journey is like by watching our video here. Reaching the Istanbul bus terminal easily with the metro train system. Arriving in at the Canakkale bus station you’ll nitce it’s little bit away from the actual town of Canakkale. This is normal in Turkey and there is a local bus that will give you a ride into town for $2.
Step two - Canakkale to Ecaebat Ferry
If you have the luxury to pick a good weather day, it’s worth waiting for that. When you decide on the day all you need to do is head to the ferry port at Canakkale (It’s right near the big Trojan horse). Quick side note, also near the Trojan horse you’ll fine oysters with rice. They are genuinely delicious even if you don’t like seafood like me!
Ferry times are listed at the terminal. The one you are looking for is heading to Ecaebat. It runs almost every hour of the day and takes around 20 minutes. It costs $2 per person and will plop you on the other side of the dardanelles. Where they are selling Simit’s (Delicious circle bread) from carts that only cost $1. I apologise for all these food tangents, but there’s so many good ones!
Step three - Crossing the peninsula
There are two options for this part, both of which we had no idea about before we started the journey. When you land, turn right and walk for about 20 meters. There you should see a parked bus waiting with a Kabatepe sign. This is a bus who’s only job is to meet ferry’s and shuttle passengers from one port to another. This will drop you to Kabatepe pier, NOT Anzac Cove. So you’ll have a bit of a walk after this if you manage to catch it! (About 1 hour )
HOWEVER when we arrived, the bus didn’t fill up and the next ferry wasn’t arriving for another hour. So we sought other options. Luckily right near the bus there was a vacant taxi.
Step Four - The Return
I won’t go into details about ANZAC cove, i’m sure you’ve done your research and know what there is to see. Instead, lets talk about how we got back because that taxi driver left us there on our own!
The plan was to flag down another passing taxi but quickly realised that we were almost alone. There were barely any tourists at all. The only other people we saw on the entire coast was someone on a private tour (This is also an option to see the cove but too expensive for us) No tourists means no taxis.
We decided to walk for an hour and meet the returning shuttle at Kabatepe pier. This is PERFECTLY possible although it really doesn’t seem like it when you start. We walked on the beach, on the side of the road and through forests. The great part was we got to see stretches of the coast that most don’t. Including some pretty cool war bunkers. The walked turned out to be lovely if a little bit toasty. We arrived at the port asked around about the bus back to Eacebat. We where shown where the the very same one we decided not to take earlier was now waiting. The driver let us jump on and wait for about 10 minutes before a ferry arrived. The bus filled quickly and we were off to meet the ferry back to Canakkale.
If you want to see the unabridged version of how the day unfolded, watch our video below:
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