Hawke’s Bay royalist gets ready for coronation trip of lifetime

Catherine Hobbs-Turner of Central HB is excited about going to King Charles' coronation in the UK end of April. Photo / Warren Buckland

As royal fever sweeps across the UK, Hawke’s Bay local Catherine Hobbs-Turner will soon be ticking another regal event off her impressive list.

The Central Hawke’s Bay resident will jet back to her birth country at the end of this month to watch the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla unfold.

A self-admitted royalist, the last event Hobbs-Turner witnessed was “either the 60 or 65th Jubilee [of Queen Elizabeth II]”, from her hometown in Ashford, Kent.

The last wedding procession she witnessed in London was that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson when Hobbs-Turner was a young girl.

She was also in London for the wedding of Charles and Diana and saw the couple’s iconic public kiss and has a souvenir mug to prove it.

“Well, I wasn’t actually at the wedding, I was stood at the gate with my flag waving,” she said.

She will leave Napier on April 29 and make her way to the town of Ashford where she will stay with relatives.

From there, it’s about an hour by train to get to the heart of the action in central London for coronation day on May 6.

“I’m going on my own and not taking any of the whānau with me. It’s quite expensive,” she said.

“It’s a very exciting thing, I don’t think it will be the only royal event in my lifetime, I’m quite a bit younger than Charles but I thought it would be really nice to go.”

The coronation is also a nice reason for Hobbs-Turner to visit her parents and family who still live in the UK.

“I’m going straight to my parents and then I’m going to travel up on the morning of the coronation, where I’ll head into London on the train.

“I’d like to go outside Westminster Abbey if I can get to it.”

Hobbs-Turner also hopes to get to Buckingham Palace, but said she expects that security during the coronation will be tight.

“It’s probably changed a lot more since I went for the weddings.”

Work colleagues of Hobbs-Turner would also be in the UK at the same time, and while most won’t be in London, she has assured them there would be no shortage of places to view the action and celebrate.

“They tell me ‘oh, we haven’t really planned anything’, but I said, don’t worry everywhere will just be buzzing.”

While Hobbs-Turner said she had a limited amount of memorabilia from previous events, she intends to change that after her coronation experience.

“I’m bringing it all back!”

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins recently announced how New Zealand would mark the coronation.

The PM will travel to the UK to attend the ceremony in London along with a number of other government representatives and iwi leaders, leaving on May 1.

It was also recently disclosed that Prince Harry had a private phone call with King Charles before agreeing to come to the coronation.

Hobbs-Turner said she had high hopes for the new king, after a noticeably bad track record previous King Charleses.

“Hopefully this Charles will do better than the last two.”