King Charles III and Queen Camilla participate in a traditional Smoking Ceremony with Ngunnawal Elder Auntie Serena Williams after arriving in Canberra on Oct 21, 2024. - Reuters
CANBERRA: King Charles III touched down in Australia's capital Canberra on Monday (Oct 21), where the monarch honoured the nation's wartime sacrifices before spotlighting a new fight against climate change.
Charles is on a nine-day jaunt through Australia and Samoa, the first major foreign tour since his life-changing cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
Smouldering native plants were wafted over the king as he stepped on the tarmac in Canberra, an Aboriginal welcoming ceremony that begins one of the busiest days of the Australian leg.
Bearing a swag of new military honours bestowed over the weekend, Charles laid a wreath in the Hall of Memory at Australia's imposing national war memorial.
Robert Fletcher and his suit-wearing alpaca "Hephner" were among the polite crowd of royal super fans and young families queuing outside to catch a glimpse.
"Hopefully we'll get in today to see the king and queen. And hopefully a selfie or something," Fletcher told AFP while holding his nine-year-old alpaca on a short leash.
Chloe Pailthorpe and her children travelled to Canberra from a small rural town nearby.
"I've been writing to the royals since I've been about 10," she told AFP.
"My kids have been writing to the royals. We just love what the royals do."
A 21-gun salute will herald the king's arrival at parliament, where the sovereign will give a speech to lawmakers for the first time as their head of state.
The rest of the day has been set aside for causes close to the 75-year-old's heart -- namely conservation and climate change.
Charles will visit a purpose-built lab at Australia's public science agency, which is used to study the bushfires that routinely ravage swathes of the country.
Later he will stroll through plots of native flowers at Australia's national botanic garden, discussing how a heating planet imperils the country's many unique species.
A lifelong greenie, Charles' passion for conservation once saw him painted as a bit of an oddball.
He famously converted an Aston Martin DB6 to run on ethanol from leftover cheese and white wine, and once confessed that he talked to plants to help them grow.
But his climate advocacy -- which has seen him dubbed the "climate king" -- is sure to resonate in a country increasingly scarred by fire and flood.
Many of Australia's state premiers will miss a reception for the king hosted in the parliament's "great hall".
Tied up with overseas travel, elections, and other pressing government business -- their absence suggests the throne does not have the pulling power it once did.
Australians, while marginally in favour of the monarchy, are far from the enthusiastic loyalists they were in 2011 when thousands flocked to catch a white-gloved wave from Charles' mother Queen Elizabeth II.
Visiting British royals have typically carried out weeks-long visits to stoke support, parading through streets packed with thrilled, flag-waving subjects.
But the king's fragile health this time around has seen much of the typical grandeur scaled back.
Aside from a community barbecue in Sydney and an event at the city's famed opera house, there will be few mass public gatherings. - AFP
