King Charles Won’t Be Following in Son Prince Harry’s Surfing Footsteps While in Australia: ‘If I Was a Younger Man’

Prince Harry was seen in a video just last week showing off his surfing skills at Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch in California

King Charles has made several quips about his age since arriving in Australia for a royal tour alongside wife Queen Camilla.

The King, 75, joked on Sunday, Oct. 20 that it was “slightly worrying” to have realized it had been nearly 60 years since he first visited Down Under while delivering his first speech during this tour of Australia. Charles gave an hourglass speech timer as a gift to Parliament the same day — a token given, as he said while presenting the gift, “in the spirit of marking the passage of time.”

“With the sands of time encouraging brevity, it just remains for me to say what a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign, and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long,” he added.

Related: King Charles and Queen Camilla Embark on Royal Tour of Australia and Samoa: See the Best Photos!

Time and his age seemed to be top of mind for Charles throughout the visit, which kicked off on Friday, Oct. 18 in Sydney. While greeting well-wishers on Sunday, Hello! reports that Joe Ackland of Melbourne asked the King “if he would be going to go surfing or swimming on Manly Beach,” Ackland said. The King’s response? “He said, ‘If I was a younger man,’ ” Ackland continued.

Speaking of surfing, King Charles’ son Prince Harry was seen catching some waves in a minute-long video posted on Wednesday, Oct. 16 by professional surfer Raimana Van Bastolaer.

Van Bastolaer said that the surfing excursion happened at Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch, a man-made wave facility in Lemoore, California.

"In tahiti, we still call you Prince harry but at surfranch, it’s my Brother,. It was an honor to have you surf with me & @kellyslater @michaelanders_ at @kswaveco ," Van Bastolaer wrote on Instagram, tagging photographer Todd Glaser and three other accounts.

Related: Prince Harry Crushes the California Waves in Surprising New Surfing Video!

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle relocated from the U.K. to her home state of California in 2020, it was reported that she bought him surf lessons as a birthday present when he turned 36.

In the past, Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43, have met with groups that use surfing as a mechanism to promote positive mental health. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex saw the work of Waves for Change in Cape Town, South Africa during their royal tour of the country in 2019, and learned more about OneWave while visiting Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia during their royal tour there in 2018.

Queen Camilla, 77, has called her husband King Charles “probably the fittest man of his age I know,” but swimming and surfing wasn’t the only activity the King felt he could no longer participate in. Now in his mid-70s, the King also announced earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with cancer. As such, the King is traveling to Australia and later Samoa with two doctors, and reports emerged before he and Camilla departed for Oceania that he would “pause” his cancer treatments while on their royal tour, which concludes on Saturday, Oct. 26.

During a visit to the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra on Monday, Oct. 21, Charles was asked by a well-wisher what his favorite sport was, according to Hello!. The King responded, “I used to sit on a horse” — presumably referring to polo — but added, “I can’t do much now. Too many injuries.”

One particular incident while playing polo in August 2001 left him with recurring back pain and knocked then-Prince Charles unconscious after his horse threw him off during a match. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital as a precautionary measure, and the incident was so significant that it ended up in the pages of son Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, as the Duke of Sussex wrote about how his father would hang upside down at home to ease the pain that followed the accident.

Thankfully, further injury didn’t occur while at the Australian National Botanic Gardens after Charles tripped slightly down a path of uneven stairs at the garden’s Rainforest Gully.

The King was walking with the head of the gardens, Dr. Rebecca Pirzl, when the monarch missed a step leading down to a viewing platform, according to the Daily Express.

He had a sense of humor about the minor gaffe, saying, “That was not what I expected.”

The Rainforest Gully is one of the most popular attractions in Canberra, the Daily Express reported, and it hosts a number of plants from the diverse rainforests of Australia’s east coast, from Tasmania to Queensland.

As he and Queen Camilla made their way up rocky steps in the Rainforest Gully, they did so “cautiously,” the Daily Express noted.

Since arriving late Friday night, the King and Queen took a rest day on Saturday, Oct. 19 before engagements in Sydney on Oct. 20, from attending a church service as St. Thomas’s Anglican Church to making remarks at the New South Wales Parliament House. On Monday, Oct. 21, the couple traveled to Canberra, where, in addition to visiting the Australian National Botanical Gardens, they also visited the Australian War Memorial and the National Bushfire Behaviour Research Laboratory.

On Tuesday, Oct. 22, the King and Queen will be back in Sydney and are expected to visit the Sydney Opera House and review the Royal Australian Navy fleet while there. The King is also expected to visit with two cancer researchers to learn about their award-winning work treating melanoma before departing for Samoa on Wednesday, Oct. 23 and the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM) there. The King is head of the Commonwealth association of 56 nations, and CHOGM is held every two years.

In all, the King and Queen are expected to pack 36 engagements into eight days, with the palace saying that the engagements in both countries “will focus on themes designed to celebrate the best of Australia and Samoa, as well as reflecting aspects of the King and Queen’s work.”

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

As he visits Australia, King Charles is only the second British monarch — and the first British King — to ever visit the country. In 1954, just two years into her history-making reign, Charles’ mother Queen Elizabeth became the first British monarch to step on Australian soil. It will be Charles and Camilla’s first trip to Australia since 2018, when they opened the Commonwealth Games on the Queensland Gold Coast.

“It’s fantastic to be here,” the King said, per The Sun. “I am so pleased to be back.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.