Prince Charles thanked Australians for being “wonderfully kind” Saturday, as he and wife Camilla wrapped up a six-day tour that has taken them from the Outback to Bondi Beach.
Hundreds of people came to see the royal couple at their final destination Canberra, with one woman offering the prince a packet of chocolate Tim Tams — a type of biscuit he had said he hoped someone would allow Camilla to try.
“You’re very kind,” Charles told Alyson Richards, 25, as she handed over the biscuits and wished him a happy birthday for next week.
At a lunch at Government House, Charles, 63, said it had been a joy to visit Australia, where the couple met hundreds of community volunteers, and were able to see the local wildlife, including koalas and kangaroos, up close.
“When we finally get back, after a very, very, long journey, if I’m still reasonably compos mentis by then and haven’t completely lost my marbles to jet lag, I will report back to her majesty your wonderfully kind thoughts and expressions after our visit,” he said.
He added while the tour had not allowed them to visit as many places as they would have liked, it enabled them to “witness so many of the changes that have happened here since I was here last”. The prince was last in Australia in 2005.
“And to witness… the extraordinary vibrancy of the multicultural society which Australia is and which of course has stood Australia in such remarkable stead in terms of the richness and diversity which you can see only too well.”
Earlier Charles was in attendance as one of the terraces of Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin was named after the Queen, following a tradition of naming the terraces after Australia’s monarchs since federation in 1901.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the renaming would “remind future generations that for more than half of our journey as a united nation, Elizabeth the Second has been our monarch.”
The royal couple were in Australia to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee and now travel to New Zealand.
Their Australian tour included a stop in outback Queensland, watching the Melbourne Cup horse race and enjoying Australian wine in Adelaide. In Sydney, Prince Charles strode onto Bondi Beach to watch an indigenous rugby league game.
Prince Charles thanks multicultural Australia
