Photographs show them having a morning walk on the beach, at the end of a programme which saw the King deliver a major speech to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) touching on slavery reparations, the Queen open a pre-school named in her honour, a myriad of traditional welcomes, and the King crowned High Chief.
Before Samoa, they spent six days in Australia, where the King shared a hug with an Aboriginal elder, was shouted at in Parliament by a senator who told him “you’re not my King”, and took a royal walkabout with 10,000 people in front of the Sydney Opera House.
In what was described as “hardly a light programme”, the King also completed his red boxes of state business as usual, having them flown out to keep up with his duties. The most recent was brought on the Prime Minister’s plane, as he attended CHOGM.
Of the intervention of Lidia Thorpe, who shouted “f— the colony” in protest for Aboriginal rights, a Palace official said the King was “completely unruffled”.
“He’s been around a long time,” they said. “As always, [he] kept calm, carried on.”
The King himself believes that “free speech is the cornerstone of democracy, and so everyone is entitled to their views”, they added.