The current so-called “Royal Tour” to Australia gives entirely new meaning to the term “flying visit”.
The schedule for King Charles and Queen Camilla in Canberra is a breathless thing of a few minutes here and a very few there before an early evening departure for Sydney.
The couple flew in to the national capital at 11.50am.
Within 20 minutes – without enough time for them to get within cooee of the contingent of schoolchildren who had gathered on the tarmac – they were 6km away, laying wreaths at the Australian War Memorial and walking through the cloisters, placing poppies on the sombre wall of honour.
They stole time to shake hands out-thrust from a sea of well-wishers in the sunshine outside the memorial before being whisked away across Lake Burley Griffin.
Consider the impressive speed of the royal visit to parliament house.
After a military-heavy ceremonial welcome on the forecourt at 1pm, the official reception was to begin at 1.30. By 2.10, the royals were marked down to “meet public as they exit”.
Has a pesky political lobbyist ever been ushered through parliament at greater velocity?
Onwards the royal couple sped.
To Government House, Yarralumla, where the Queen was to discuss at 3.15pm the scourge of domestic violence at an event hosted by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, followed by a tree planting in the grounded by both the King and Queen at 4pm.
Time rushing by, King Charles was due at the CSIRO on the other side of the lake at 4.20pm to discuss bushfire behaviour. You’d almost imagine his own pants were on fire by then.
At the very same time, 4.20, Queen Camilla was due to meet volunteers at the nearby National Botanic Gardens. The King was to meet her there at 4.55 to discuss with gardens staff the effect of climate change.
“Time permitting”, the official schedule offered optimistically, the couple would undertake a rainforest walk (4.55pm) followed by a tree planting (5pm).
And off to the airport and aloft, bound for Sydney.
“We did but see them passing by?”
Assuming we didn’t blink.
Happily, Charles and Camilla signed visitors books here and there to prove they’d been.
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