King Charles III attended church Sunday as he began an Australian tour in earnest, giving antipodean admirers the first glimpse of their reigning monarch.
The 75-year-old sovereign arrived in Sydney late on Friday evening, but had kept a low profile as he balances cancer recovery with royal duties.
His first official public appearance was a Sunday morning service at St Thomas’ Anglican Church in northern Sydney, a stone edifice built as a place of worship for British colonial settlers.
A number of prominent British colonists are buried in the church’s graveyard nearby, including Edward Wollstonecraft – a cousin of ‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley.
Lynton Martin, 22, drove nine hours from Melbourne and donned a union flag print jacket and nine royal lapel pins before trying to catch a glimpse of the royals.
“I wanted to show that we are supportive and welcoming of the king,” he told AFP, expecting an “aura” to Sunday’s service.
Last year he travelled to London for Charles’ coronation, which he described as a “spectacular” event.
But the king’s fragile health this time around has seen much of the typical grandeur scaled back.
Intentional or not, the more modest schedule should also help stave off republican concerns about out-of-touch spending and lavish royal banquets.
Aside from a community barbecue in Sydney and an event at the city’s famed opera house, there will be few mass public gatherings.
A handful of protesters gathered near the church on Sunday, brandishing demands to “decolonise” Australia.
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.
During the church service Bishop Christopher Edwards prayed for peace and an end to wars, and asked that Charles’ upcoming Commonwealth summit in Samoa be prosperous.
Later Sunday, Charles made a brief remarks at the New South Wales legislative council, where he hailed the “promise and power of representative democracy” and cracked a joke about his advancing age.
“I first came to Australia nearly 60 years ago, which is slightly worrying,” he said to laughter.
“It just remains for me to say what a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long”.
Read it all at AFP