"That would have really sucked," Corporal Matt Williams says, looking back down towards Anzac Cove.
The 28-year-old is standing in the Lone Pine cemetery where, on Saturday, he'll command the Catafalque Party during the Lone Pine centenary commemorative service.
It will be Cpl Williams' first overseas duty with Australia's Federation Guard and probably the most important of his career.
Cpl Williams visited the Gallipoli peninsula for the first time on Sunday and, like so many before him, was shocked at just how rugged and steep the Turkish terrain is.
"You see it on TV, you see it in pictures and books, but until you actually get on the ground and see it for yourself, that's when you go 'Wow that would have really sucked - that's full on'," he told AAP after travelling up the cliff road from the beach where the Anzacs landed 100 years ago.
"It's amazing to be on the ground where it all happened. The terrain is unbelievable - I don't know how they achieved half of what they did.
"In this sort of terrain it would have been very difficult to coordinate and to get anywhere."
On Anzac Day four members of the Catafalque Party will stand with their heads bowed and weapons reversed, facing away from the Lone Pine catafalque as a symbolic form of respect for those who died during the campaign.
There'll also be a fifth back-up member on duty and, of course, the crucial drummer.
Canberra-based Cpl Williams, who's originally from Portland in the NSW central tablelands, will oversee the task from start to finish including giving the commands.
The commander had to put his best foot forward to be selected to travel to Gallipoli in 2015.
"Especially this year being the 100th anniversary, it's a huge deal," he said on Sunday.
"This is my first appointment with the guard overseas so I'm very, very happy to be here, to say the least, for such a huge event.
"There's just so much history here. Such feats were achieved that it started the whole attitude of the Australian Defence Force.
"The way we conduct ourselves now is based on what those guys did 100 years ago."
In early August 1915 Australian forces launched an attack against entrenched Turkish positions at Lone Pine.
The main Turkish trench was taken within 20 minutes of the initial charge but over the following four days of intense, hand-to-hand fighting, 2000 Australians died.
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