{"id":2372290,"date":"2026-04-14T03:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2372290"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:32:08","slug":"prince-harry-and-meghan-begin-first-leg-of-australia-visit-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/prince-harry-and-meghan-begin-first-leg-of-australia-visit-in-melbourne\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry and Meghan begin first leg of Australia visit in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have begun the Melbourne leg of their whirlwind Australian tour, spending time at the Royal Children’s Hospital before they visit a women’s shelter.<\/p>\n

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be in Melbourne for three days spending time at various charity events, while also attending “private meetings and special projects”, including a ticketed conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The foyer of the Royal Children’s Hospital was packed with families today for the pair’s visit, with young patients waiting eagerly to meet the Duke and Duchess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Harry and Meghan spent about 10 minutes meeting families in the foyer. (AP: Jonathan Brady<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Prince Harry shook hands and chatted freely with dozens of people, while Meghan stopped to hug children amid a flurry of camera flashes.<\/p>\n

For 17-year-old Scarlett McGowan, it was a second brush with royalty after having met Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, many years ago.<\/p>\n

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“It was fun, Harry was very easy to chat to,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

she said.<\/span><\/div>\n

“He asked me how my care was and I had to point out how beautiful and how lovely our nurses are, they take such good care of us.”<\/p>\n

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Scarlett McGowan (right) was excited to meet the Duke and Duchess face-to-face. (ABC News<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

She said it was a surreal morning, having only found out about the visit today.<\/p>\n

“I was woken up and told I was going downstairs to meet Harry and Megan and I thought: ‘I think you’re joking, but OK’,” Scarlett said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t get off the ward very much so it was very nice to come down and be human for a little bit.”<\/p>\n

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Meghan made sure to meet one young patient. (AP: Jonathan Brady<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Young patient Novalie Morris admitted she didn’t know much about the pair before today, but had a wonderful time, even snagging a hug.<\/p>\n

“Meghan wished me to keep on being brave, and I gave Harry some flowers, so I was just grateful for the opportunity to meet them,” she said.<\/p>\n

Lily Batchelder said she felt very excited today to meet royalty, and made them a sign to welcome them.<\/p>\n

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Meghan seemed to love Lily’s handmade sign welcoming her to Australia. (AP: Jonathan Brady<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

On Wednesday, Harry will meet with players from the Western Bulldogs AFL team at a Movember event, but it’s unknown if he will attempt to kick a footy as Queen Mary of Denmark did last month during her visit to the MCG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The prince will make a brief stop in Canberra before returning to Melbourne on Thursday to attend Indigenous and mental health events.<\/p>\n

It’s the first time the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been in Australia since 2018, and the first since the couple officially distanced themselves from the royal family.<\/p>\n

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Harry and Meghan made their first public appearance of their Australian visit at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital. (ABC News<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Harry and Meghan flew into Melbourne on Tuesday morning on a commercial flight from the United States, before being met on the tarmac by a private vehicle.<\/p>\n

Mixed reactions to Harry and Meghan’s visit<\/h2>\n

One woman who spoke to the couple on the flight said she wished them well.<\/p>\n

“I said I hope you have a lovely time in Melbourne and I’m sure you’ll enjoy Sydney, and we spoke about their children and that they were here for a couple of days,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s so exciting. Everyone was so excited to see them onboard.”<\/p>\n

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One woman who was on the same flight as Harry and Meghan said she wished them a good trip. (ABC News<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Another passenger on the flight said Harry deserved respect for travelling with the masses, even if the pair enjoyed first-class luxury.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s admirable and honourable that he’s not just taking his own plane everywhere,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Why not come on a commercial flight, as long as it’s secure enough?”<\/p>\n

Another passenger said she had no idea the pair was on the same flight until she saw Harry as she was disembarking.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never seen anybody look so refreshed getting off a flight from the US. He looked great,” she said.<\/p>\n

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Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, speaks with a child patient at the Royal Children’s Hospital. (Reuters: Jonathan Brady\/Pool<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

But not every Victorian was as pleased with the visit.<\/p>\n

Opposition leader Jess Wilson went on the attack on Monday, voicing concerns that Victoria Police had been enlisted to provide private protection for the pair.<\/p>\n

“Suggestions today that Harry and Meghan, who are coming here as private citizens for a commercial purpose, may be provided Victoria Police security or protection at taxpayer expense should appal every single Victorian,” Ms Wilson said.<\/p>\n

The visit down under has been a subject of discussion in both Australia and the United Kingdom<\/a>, where just 19 and 32 per cent of the British public now holding a positive view of Meghan and Harry respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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One young boy seemed please to meet Prince Harry. (Reuters: Mark Peterson<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

British journalist and royal commentator Afua Hagan said the visit had been much more low-profile than their 2018 visit by design.<\/p>\n

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“Where you get this conversation about a pseudo-royal visit, it’s because they are so popular, because crowds will turn out,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms Hagan said.<\/span><\/div>\n

“We know there’s not going to be any walkabouts, maybe because of the security concerns associated with that.<\/p>\n

“I think also partly because they didn’t want to have walkabouts either because then, it looks much more like a royal visit.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.abc.net.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have begun the Melbourne leg of their whirlwind Australian tour, spending time at the Royal Children’s Hospital before they visit a women’s shelter. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be in Melbourne for three days spending time at various charity events, while also attending “private meetings and special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2372291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[362877,393753,346744,346746,346745,21846,22701,388091,327679],"class_list":["post-2372290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-duchess","tag-duke","tag-harry","tag-markle","tag-meghan","tag-prince","tag-royal","tag-sussex","tag-windsor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Prince-Harry-and-Meghan-begin-first-leg-of-Australia-visit.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372292,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372290\/revisions\/2372292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}