At Gallipoli, up at the battleground we know as the Nek, we were walking carefully through the eroded impressions of 110-year-old trenches on a hot August afternoon.

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When you ascend to that ridge, its strategic value is obvious. As the gateway to the high points of the peninsula, this space - scarcely the size of two tennis courts - was bitterly contested and bloodily defended.

As we slowly made our way through the Australian trenches, our guide called us over and pointed at a few dull white objects sticking out of one of these banks.

They looked like rock or bits of sun-bleached wood. But as we bent down he pointed out the shape of a shoulder and a rib.

For the first time in more than a century, a soldier's remains had been revealed to us by some rain.

It is a relatively frequent thing to happen, we were told. Given the certainty that they would have been remains of an Australian, they would be gathered up and interred, with ceremony, at a Commonwealth war cemetery.

But it was a visceral reminder that what we commemorate on April 25 is not ancient history.

Tomorrow morning I'll be in a country town in NSW visiting........

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