Sausages, sheepdogs and Opera House sails: The royals’ big day out in Sydney

Barbecues, with their sizzling hotplates and snappy utensils, are not natural terrain for the royals. The King and Queen poked awkwardly at sausages in Parramatta, and inspected the tongs with curiosity. “They’re long, aren’t they?” said the King.

Greeting starstruck strangers is more their bailiwick. The septuagenarian royal couple nodded and smiled their way from Parramatta to the Opera House during a jam-packed schedule on Tuesday, enduring persistent flies and the beating western Sydney sun.

Sausage sizzle fit for a king: King Charles III and Queen Camilla demonstrate their cooking skills at the Premier’s Community Barbeque at Parramatta Park.Credit: Getty

Queen Camilla, who at one point decked herself in a native flower crown, even won over one of the country’s pioneering republicans, author Thomas Keneally. He gave her a copy of his Booker Prize-winning book Schindler’s Ark at Green Square library.

“You’re entitled to think I’m a hypocrite because I have both enjoyed the company of the Queen and I can say all those monarchist things, like, she’s so natural, and she’s so lovely,” the founder of the Australian Republican Movement and author of Our Republic told the Herald and The Age.

There were no moments of scandal, such as the one supplied by Senator Lidia Thorpe in Canberra on Monday when she shouted, “you are not my king” and accused the monarchy of “genocide against our people”. Protesters, too, were thin on the ground, although a central Sydney statue of the King’s great-great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, was defaced by red paint overnight, and a lone Indigenous protester made his anger known at the Opera House forecourt entrance before the royals arrived.

Thorpe’s actions hung in the air during the King’s visit to the National Institute of Indigenous Excellence in the morning. While her outburst was condemned by many, it did draw international attention to issues Australia is struggling to address. King Charles was gently reminded of this on Tuesday morning.

“We’ve got stories to tell – and I think you witnessed that story yesterday,” Allan Murray, chair of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, told him. “Welcome to Gadigal land.”

The King had a private meeting with Indigenous leaders following the welcome.

The royal couple split up for the morning. At a visit to a construction site for affordable housing, the King met three apprentices, including a plumber. “You can never get a good plumber these days,” joked the King, who is likely to have had little personal experience with organising tradespeople.

After visiting a food charity, Queen Camilla met a well-known Surry Hills pet parrot, Caesar, who squawked a hello from the shoulder of his owner, Pierre Gawronski. “He’s not camera shy,” she commented.

The couple reunited for a community barbecue at the Crescent at Parramatta Park, hosted by NSW Premier Chris Minns. The cordoned-off area was decked in colourful triangular flags, leaving it looking like a cross between the Royal Easter Show and a medieval jousting event.

The guest list was a who’s who of multicultural Sydney: there were orthodox bishops in long robes; women in saris and the Ugandan gomesi; men in turbans and Akubra hats. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb rubbed shoulders with singer Delta Goodrem and self-described “toddler DJ” Lenny Pearce (also from Justice Crew).

In the beating sun, the royals greeted schoolchildren (including some from The King’s School, who still wear a black tie in mourning for Queen Victoria) and western Sydney luminaries such as Lurnea’s Anthony Field (the original Blue Wiggle) and prolific children’s author Anh Do.

The King chatted to Sydney Thunder cricketer David Warner, who suggested he have a bowl. “He said he didn’t want to make a fool of himself,” Warner said. They were presented with many gifts, including a friendship band from an 11-year-old girl (the Queen wore it next to her jewels) and an “I Love Dubbo” T-shirt.

King Charles was also introduced to Detective Inspector Amy Scott, the officer who tracked down and fatally shot a man who stabbed shoppers at Bondi Westfield in April, killing six of them. She gave him a brief, sombre account of the terrifying event.

The royal couple were also given a sheepdog display, in which a dog called Colt corralled some sheep and also ended up rounding up a group of slightly panicked local and British journalists standing in the same makeshift paddock, who got closer to the action than they had anticipated.

“Brilliant,” said the King afterwards.

Lorna Virgo waiting to see the royals at the Opera House.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Stockman Murray Wilkinson – whose dogs would fetch $40,000, if he was inclined to sell them – said the King seemed knowledgeable about livestock. “He was talking about the prices of wool and was quite up on what’s actually happening with it at the moment,” he said.

“I brought the sheep right down here, he actually got to have a pat of the sheep – got his hands on it.”

The King’s thanks to the crowd revealed he had researched Australia’s favourite breakfast. “As we are happily rediscovering today, NSW farmers continue to produce truly outstanding food and wine. It’s no wonder, I think, that Sydney is world-famous for its cuisine whether it’s smashed avo, a pav, or a cab sav,” he said.

One of the faces in the crowd was Lorna Virgo. In 1948, when King Charles was born, her school teacher, Mr Britain, told the class: “There is a baby born in England today. Some day he will be king.” Those words were to shape her destiny.

Virgo first saw Queen Elizabeth in 1954 in Lismore. Virgo said she was a little disappointed because she had been collecting photos of the Queen and her sister Prince Margaret in glamorous clothes.

“[The Queen] was in ordinary clothing, and it rained and it rained.”

On January 26, 1988, at a celebration of the bicentenary, she made the front page of Sydney newspaper The Sun wearing an improvised sun hat made from an Australian flag printed in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, which was then a broadsheet.

“The smiling face of Sydney’s big day,” read the caption.

The royals finished their day at the Opera House, which is common ground for royal visits and was lined with thousands of royal enthusiasts such as Ella Su, 39, who brought her mother-in-law Joan Kelso, 95, from Croydon.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla stand in front of a group of school children from across Sydney who sang “Follow Your Dreams” by Ocean Lim.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“I shook hands with the King and he said to look after my mother-in-law, to keep her well,” she said.

They greeted more well-wishers, including British actress Joanna Lumley, a friend of the King’s father Prince Philip. The royals finished their day with a Royal Australian Navy Fleet review, before returning to Admiralty House. They leave on Wednesday morning for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.

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