Harry and Meghan's Australia-New Zealand tour that changed everything

"It really changed after the Australia tour," Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey in the explosive interview he gave with Meghan Markle in March 2021. The couple recalled how they felt their relationship with the British Royal Family had deteriorated after they came back from their South Pacific tour. The trip was a pivotal moment in the story of 'Megxit:' the break of Harry and Meghan with the British palace and one of the greatest royal crises in recent history. What happened during that tour?

The couple's 2018 tour of Australia and New Zealand was their first official trip together. According to Harry, it was "the first time that the family got to see how incredible [Meghan] is at the job. And that brought back memories." Yes, he was referring to his late mother Diana and the way she stole the hearts of Australians and New Zealanders during her visit at the time.

There have been quite a few comparisons between Harry and Meghan in the present and Lady Diana in the past. Both Meghan and Diana were 'odd women out' in the Royal Family. Harry himself says he didn't want "history to repeat itself" with Meghan pursued by the press and feeling isolated and unsafe in the palace. It's something his mother Diana endured for many years, the Duke of Sussex recalls.

What makes both Diana and Meghan so different from the other royals becomes clear when we revisit their trips to faraway territories. Both women instantly won the hearts of the people as they visited them in their hometowns and showed a genuine interest in their lives.

Diana and Charles' appearance in New Zealand, in 1983, was one of those occasions people would long remember. Their photo on the grounds of Auckland's Government House, sitting on a plaid in the grass with baby William, became iconic.

A similarly groundbreaking trip was that of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Australia and New Zealand in 2018. They were in Sydney for the Invictus Games and visited Dubbo, Melbourne, Fraser Island, Tonga, Fiji, and New Zealand.

People soon noticed that Harry and Meghan were just as open and genuinely friendly with the local people as Harry's mother Diana had been. To compare, here's a scene with Lady Di in Australia.

And here's her son Harry in 2018. Scenes like this one in Dubbo, New South Wales, attest to the way the couple reminded people of Diana.

Harry has quite a few experiences visiting Australia and New Zealand. He went there a number of times before meeting Meghan Markle and touring the continent with her in 2018.

A young Prince Harry visited Sydney in 2003 at the beginning of a three-month stay in Australia. The 19-year-old came to work at a cattle ranch in the Outback as an Australian cowboy - a jackaroo.

In 2015, Harry had the honor of greeting a 100-year-old Tuatara lizard in Invercargill. His name was Henry.

Prince Harry had fun with the kids of Canberra, who believe that red heads are the best people.

Besides laughing with the kids, Prince Harry also tended to a more serious matter: He placed a poppy at the Roll of Honour in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

By 2018, the Duke of Sussex brought his wife along with him to Australia and New Zealand. People got emotional.

Some of them may have hoped to snatch up the Prince themselves one day. But we forgive you for choosing Meghan, Harry!

The late Dafne Dunne, here 98 years old, was arguably Prince Harry's biggest fan in the world. She would pass away in the year after the visit, 2019.

Meghan Markle was immediately as popular as her husband, thanks to her smile and interest in people. The fact that she had just disclosed being pregnant with her first child made Meghan extra interesting for royalty fans and the media.

Her enthusiasm during the final of the 2018 Invictus Games was very much appreciated.

An important event during their trip in Australia was a surf gathering on the beach to raise awareness about mental health. Much later it would become known that both Harry and Meghan were dealing with mental health issues themselves during their time as senior members of the royal family. They talked about it during the Oprah interview.

"To see how effortless it was for Meghan to come into the family so quickly in Australia and across New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, and just be able to connect with people," Harry recalled in the interview with Oprah. "She was very much welcomed into the family not just by the family, but by the world."

Harry had trouble understanding how his family could not like Meghan Markle. "Really here you have one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for," he told Oprah.

Harry and Meghan visited Fraser Island during their 2018 tour of Australia.

They met with the Butchulla people. They are the traditional owners of the island, which they call K'gari.

In Dubbo, New South Wales, they were put to work at the Mountain View Farm.

They had a lovely meeting with the Woodley family.

One of the highlights of the trip was the striking and heartwarming encounter the couple had with a class of school kids on Dubbo Airport

The little boy Luke Vincent took a special liking to the Prince, his beard, and his wife. He could not bother with the protocol.

After hugging Harry, he gave the same heartfelt greeting to Meghan Markle. The images of their encounter traveled across the world.

Moving on to New Zealand, Harry and Meghan wore Korowai, traditional Maori cloaks, when they visited Te Papaiouru, Ohinemutu, in Rotorua.

Meghan gave the Maori greeting, or hongi, as if she'd never done anything else.

It had rained and there was a lot of mud. But that didn't stop Harry and Meghan from fully participating in the activities organized by the community of Redvale, North Shore in New Zealand.

Part of the festivities was a boot throwing contest. We know that Meghan competed fervently, but we don't know who won.

Meghan helped out the local kids planting a tree. She clearly wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty.

Local and international media agreed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were a popular couple among the Australians and New Zealanders.

It was after this successful visit, and the great chemistry of Meghan and Harry with the Australian and New Zealand people, that the couple reportedly had a rough awakening at home. "After we had gotten back from our Australia tour," Meghan told Oprah Winfrey, "things really started to turn... I knew we weren't being protected." Well, the rest is history...