Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and the Sheep: How the Royals Transformed One Australian Country Town - TownandCountrymag.com

During their 1983 royal tour, the Prince and Princess arranged for baby Prince William to stay at Woomargama Station, a working property in a small town.

Indeed, it’s been nearly four decades since he welcomed Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and a months-old Prince William to Woomargama Station, the farm he was managing at the time, during their royal tour of Australia, but Ward still doesn’t seem to have slowed down in the meantime—when I rang the day before, he explained with a genial chuckle that he was busy “picking up cattle poo.”.

But then they’d return to see baby William—whom Diana, famously, had insisted on bringing, breaking royal tradition—in Woomargama, the country town of 90-some residents where William and his nanny stayed for the duration of the trip.

Woomargama Station, located in the town of the same name, is a working property.

For Diana and country-loving Charles, though, the town and its station served as a comfortable and safe home base for William, within driving distance of an airport, and roughly in-between Sydney and Melbourne, so as not to appear to favor one over the other.

However it was arranged, in the spring of 1983, the residents of Woomargama had their day-to-day lives turned upside down as the media besieged the town.

The Woomargama Whisper suggested residents "be kind," and "Try not to tread on them, even though they may be crawling through the grass looking for a scoop photograph," but that wasn't so easy for Ward, who needed to keep the farm running amid all the madness.

At least one of their worries vanished when Prince Charles and Princess Diana arrived in the middle of a downpour.

“We always said Princess Diana broke the drought,” Cannon said.

“Prince Charles arrived at the homestead and he said, ‘This is the first time I have ever had to wear a mackintosh in Australia!’” Ward laughs.

For the most part, the Prince and Princess were busy jetsetting and glad-handing around the continent, leaving Woomargama with just the station staff, palace staff, and security staff—and of course, little Wills and the nanny, Barbara Barnes.

Cannon, who never met the Windsors during their stay, says the story goes that William took his first steps at the station.

When the couple was in town, though, it was hardly a restful break from their tour.

And Princess Diana met her and said, ‘oh, I love all your gnomes,’” Cannon laughs.

The real highlight for Woomargama residents was the couple's attendance at church service in nearby Halbrook, at the royal tour organizers’ suggestion.

Woomargama souvenirs were made featuring the Prince and Princess of Wales, some of which Semmler and her family still have; a plaque was installed outside the church they visited; and the smokehouse that supplied Chalres and Diana with smoked trout still touts its ties to the Windsors

(Anthony Ainsworth, who took over the business a few years back, was shocked when the rumors of the royal connection were verified: “I thought, oh! It’s real, it’s true!”) But Ward says that he doubts many people in town even remember it