Eden couple Gail and Dave Ward have left on a pilgrimage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Anzac Day in Gallipoli.
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The Wards registered for the ballot for tickets to the centenary Anzac Day dawn service, and while Gail missed and was placed on a waiting list behind 27,000 other hopeful Australians, Dave was offered two tickets in the first round.
With their bags already packed, and their places on an RSL tour confirmed, it was only last week that Gail was officially notified that her application had been unsuccessful.
The couple left Eden bound for Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday where they will spend six nights ahead of joining the tour to Gallipoli for the dawn service.
"It means a great deal to us, to be a part of something very special, a part of history," Gail said on Friday.
Gail's father, Al Armstrong, of Eden, who is now 95 years old, served in New Guinea in World War II.
Her great uncle, John "Jack" Squire Armstrong, of Greigs Flat, enlisted in 1916 and was sent to fight on the Western Front.
He was killed at Polygon Wood in Belgium on September 20, 1917, after only 11 days of active service.
Jack Armstrong's photo was used on a war recruitment poster that was reproduced on the cover of Australian Town and Country Journal, and now hangs in the Eden home.
The Australian and New Zealand governments initiated the ballot process for the 2015 Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli following advice from the Turkish Government that they had capped attendance at 10,500 people.
This will be Gail and Dave's second visit to Turkey.
They visited the country, including Gallipoli, in 2009, but were not there for Anzac Day.
John Squire Armstrong
John "Jack" Squire Armstrong was born in Delegate in 1893, moving to Greigs Flat, near Pambula, four years later where he attended the local school.
Orphaned at 12 years old - his mother dying of dropsy and his father being swept off rocks while fishing at Leonards Island, just north of Eden - Jack went to live with his married sister in Sydney.
According to Pat Raymond's book Remembering Bega Valley Servicemen of World War I, Jack worked as a blacksmith's assistant and attempted to enlist in January 1916 at the Sydney Town Hall but was rejected because of a hernia.
After his disappointment, Jack had an extended holiday with his brother George at Greigs Flat and upon his return to Sydney, he made a second attempt to enlist.
This time he was successful and he embarked on the First Australian Imperial Force troopship HMAT Ceramic in October 1916, arriving in Plymouth a month later.
He proceeded to France in September 1917 as part of the 20th Battalion.
After participating in active service for only 11 days, Jack was killed at Polygon Wood on September 20 1917.
A letter to his family from the Red Cross said Private JS Armstrong had been killed by machine gun fire and was buried where he lay.
Private Armstrong was a "fine type of Australian manhood, and was beloved by all his company," the letter said.
His remains were unable to be located.
Jack's name is one of the many commemorated on the Ypres Menin Gate Memorial in Belgium and is also recorded on his parent's headstone in Pambula Cemetery,
