Charles III in Australia for his first long trip since the announcement of his cancer

King Charles III is due to arrive in Australia on Friday for his most physically demanding trip since he was diagnosed with cancer, where his subjects await him with a certain indifference.

Doctors have authorized the sovereign, according to British media, to suspend his treatment for the duration of this trip, which should also take him to the Samoan Islands for a meeting of the Commonwealth.

Charles will be the first sitting British monarch to set foot in Australia since 2011, when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was greeted by a large crowd .

The 75-year-old king is scheduled to fly for about 20 hours before landing in Sydney on Friday evening, where a video montage of the 16 royal visits to Australia will be shown on the Opera House in his honour.

After six days in Australia, Charles and his wife Camilla will cross the Pacific Ocean to Samoa.

Charles is expected to highlight the dangers of climate change in a country wracked by bushfires and flooding during his visit to Australia. He will also meet scientists at a cancer research lab.

Opportunities to meet the public include an event outside the Sydney Opera House and a giant barbecue.

But with the exception of a handful of staunch monarchists and ardent republicans, the Australian public has been largely indifferent to the sovereign's visit.

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“I forgot they were coming,” admits Trevor Reeves, a 73-year-old Sydney resident, to sum up the mood before Charles and Camilla's arrival.

– Many memories –

Australia is dear to Charles III and he has many memories there.

Charles, then heir to the throne, is greeted by the crowd on April 4, 2018 in Brisbane, Australia © POOL – DAN PELED

He first went there in 1966, at the age of 17, for a stay at the isolated Timbertop school, in a mountainous region of the state of Victoria (southeast).

Charles returned to Australia with his wife Diana in 1983, drawing crowds eager to see the “people's princess” at iconic venues such as the Sydney Opera House.

During a visit in 1994, a man fired two blank rounds at the heir to the throne as he was giving a speech in Sydney Harbour.

The six-day visit to Australia, followed by five days in Samoa, was Charles's longest overseas trip since he began cancer treatment in February.

He had visited France briefly earlier that year to mark the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy.

Australia rejected a constitutional change to become a republic in a referendum in 1999, and no such reform is now on the agenda. day.

On the eve of his arrival, Charles III carefully sidestepped the issue, declaring that it was up to the Australian public to decide.

According to polls, about a third of Australians would like to get rid of the monarchy, a third want to preserve it, and a third say they are divided.

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