DUKE’S PLANS IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27985, 4 June 1956, Page 3

DUKE’S PLANS IN AUSTRALIA

Extensive Tour Projected (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) MELBOURNE, June 2. The Duke of Edinburgh will rub shoulders with “dinkum Aussies” in the vast out-back during his Olympic Games visit to Australia in November and December.

The official programme, which is largely shaped by the Duke, sets a new standard of informality for a Royal visitor.

Details released show that the programme takes him to places and people nearly 2000 miles from Australia’s city population jammed in the coastal cities. The Duke will spend four days in the hinterland with cattle station men, and their drovers and boundary riders, black and white, who could hold their own in any rodeo.

He will be with miners, engineers, and scientists who are winning uranium ore for atomic power from the rich Rum Jungle project, and with the olain big-hearted people of the Northern Territory and Central Australia who have not lost the pioneering spirit and the love of wide horizons and blue skies.

Those who cannot trek from the further outlying areas to meet the Duke will at least hear him. He will have a message for them on the “Flying Doctor” radio network, which is the common listening post for territory residents separated from each other by hundreds of miles.

When he makes his tour of the Gigantic Snowy Mountains Power Scheme on the “roof” of Australia, the Duke will meet thousands of other men fast becoming “dinkum Aussies” —the new Australians from other lands who have chosen this country for its freedom and opportunity.

Before the Duke reaches the Australian mainland by air through Darwin on November 14, he will have spent three days in the Australian territories of Papua and New Guinea, which have never previously been visited by a member of the Royal Family. Although the visit there is still six months away, the villagers are already preparing exhibits of their crafts for his inspection, and native troops are getting ready for the grandest parade of their lives.

From Alice Springs in Central Australia. the Duke will fly to the National Capital. Canberra, on November 18, and will have a free day before beginning a round of naval, military, and scientific establishments in the Capital Territory and attending a Federal Parliamentary dinner. On the day of his main duty in Australia—the official opening of the Olympic Games, on November 22—he will have a crowded 13-hour programme. It includes a flight from Canberra, Royal progress through about 11 miles of Melbourne, the Games opening, and an Olympic night banquet.