新湖畔网 （随信APP) | 一只穿着讲究的羊驼在查尔斯国王身上打了个喷嚏

英国国王查尔斯三世在2024年10月21日离开澳大利亚战争纪念馆前与名为Hephner的羊驼的主人聊天。- 版权POO/AFP Mark Baker

周一，查尔斯国王开玩笑谈到了他过去与澳大利亚强大的野生动物——棕蛇、水蛭、漏斗网蜘蛛和牛蚁的相遇。他没有提到被一只名为Hephner的穿着西装的九岁羊驼打喷嚏。

这位75岁的英国皇室成员访问了他在澳大利亚领土内的首都堪培拉，他与议员们开玩笑谈到了他在名为Timbertop的农村文法学校的时光。

他在上世纪60年代作为一个笨拙的17岁少年参加了这所位于澳大利亚东南部的高山学校，并回忆这段经历是变化的。

“我只能说，我到达时是青少年，但在与棕蛇、水蛭、漏斗网蜘蛛和牛蚁较量之后，我离开时变得更加完整，甚至有些雕塑般的性格，”他说完大家都笑了。

他没有告诉观众的是，最近他又与一只澳大利亚动物有了另一次性格形成的相遇。

在澳大利亚战争纪念馆与支持者见面时，查尔斯停下来欣赏一只穿着金冠和西装的衣着时尚的羊驼。

他伸手去摸“Hephner”，这只毛茸茸的骆驼科动物，然后被它蹦过了一身。

“要你健康”从人群中有人说道，然后查尔斯检查了一下自己右边的翻领，看看是否被Hephner的喷嚏留下痕迹。

这不是查尔斯作为国王第一次遇到羊驼。

去年，他在威尔士农业展上见过一只（没穿衣服的）羊驼。

Britain's King Charles III chats with the owner of an alpaca named Hephner before leaving the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on October 21, 2024. - Copyright POOL/AFP Mark Baker

King Charles joked Monday about past encounters with Australia's formidable wildlife — brown snakes, leeches, funnel web spiders, and bull ants. He did not mention being sneezed on by a nine-year-old suit-wearing alpaca named Hephner.

The 75-year-old British royal visited Canberra, the capital of his Australian realm, where he joked with lawmakers about his time at a rural grammar school called Timbertop.

He attended the alpine school in southeast Australia in the 1960s as a gawky 17-year-old and recalled the experience as being transformational.

"All I can say is that I arrived as an adolescent and left as a more rounded, if not even somewhat chiseled, character once I had contended with brown snakes, leeches, funnel web spiders, and bull ants," he said to laughs.

What he did not tell the crowd was he had recently had another character-forming encounter with an Australian animal.

Greeting supporters on a rope line at the Australian War Memorial, Charles stopped to admire a sartorially suave alpaca that was wearing a gold crown and suit.

He reached out to "Hephner," as the woolly camelid is known, and gave him a quick rub on the nose.

However, that caused Hephner to sneeze all over the king and his bodyguard who was also in the line of fire.

"Bless you" someone said from the fray, before Charles checked his right lapel for any trace of Hephner's expulsive tribute.

It is not the first time Charles has encountered an alpaca as king.

Last year he met an (unclothed) alpaca at an agricultural show in Wales.