King Charles and Queen Camilla Receive Warm Welcome in Sydney, the First Leg of Their Two-City Australian Tour

King Charles has been to Australia 16 times previously — but this visit, which is his first as monarch, is markedly different than those before it. 

After touching down in Sydney in a downpour at roughly 8:30 p.m. local time on Friday, Oct. 18, the King, 75, and Queen Camilla, 77, will spend the weekend in Sydney before heading to Canberra, the only other city they’ll visit in Australia.

They were greeted with royal images projected onto the iconic Sydney Opera House, featuring the King and Queen throughout the years. “What a backdrop! 🌉🤩,” the royal family’s Instagram account wrote alongside images of the brilliant display.

Per the post, the King and Queen spent Saturday, Oct. 19, as a rest day at the Admiralty House, and will “begin their first day of official engagements in Australia” on the Sunday, Oct. 20, with plans to attend church in the morning before the King visits the Parliament of New South Wales.

While in Sydney, the couple were welcomed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for an official reception, where they also met with politicians, community leaders and locals who are standouts in the fields of culture and sport.

King Charles will have an opportunity to discuss environmentalism at the National Botanical Gardens, where Tatler reports he will speak about climate change in a country recently ravaged by wildfires.

The King will also meet with scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization to discuss how to best combat wildfires; meanwhile, the Queen is due to take part in a panel on domestic violence before celebrating GIVIT’s role in organizing donations for those who are most vulnerable (she is a patron of the organization).

Additionally, Queen Camilla, a child literacy advocate, will meet children taking part in a Commonwealth reading challenge.

They’ll round out their time in Sydney at a community barbeque celebrating Australia’s cultural diversity and will meet with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives to learn more about communities that live in Australia before departing for Samoa on Wednesday and the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM) there.

While this is nowhere near Charles’ first visit to Australia, it is his first as King — and, actually, the first visit of a British King ever to the country. His mother, Queen Elizabeth, became the first British monarch to visit Down Under when she visited for the first time in 1954; she would visit many other times before her death on Sept. 8, 2022, with the last trip there taking place in 2011.

This royal tour is especially significant, as it not only marks the first tour of a Commonwealth realm since Charles took the throne over two years ago, but also the first tour of this nature since he was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

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While in Australia and Samoa, the King will “pause” his cancer treatments and will travel with two doctors. The lift will also be significantly lighter in terms of number of engagements taken.

Charles and Camilla last visited Australia in 2018, when they opened the Commonwealth Games on the Queensland Gold Coast.