Mary mania is about to sweep Australia, with Tasmania’s own Danish queen and husband, King Frederik, to embark on a six-day state visit.

Traditional owners will welcome the royal couple at Uluru on March 14, where they will watch the sunset with Indigenous elders.

The early highlight to the visit – the couple’s first since taking the throne in 2024 – is expected to evoke echoes of the 1983 British royal tour, when the late Princess Diana and husband, Charles, now King, visited the iconic rock.

“It’s an opportunity for them to see the natural beauty of Australia,” Danish Ambassador to Australia Ingrid Dahl-Madsen said, adding that Mary and Frederik had a keen interest in biodiversity.

“It’s going to be a pretty packed program.”

The tour will also take the visiting royals to Canberra, Melbourne and Mary’s hometown, Hobart.

“There’s such a positive vibe … around the relationship of our two countries,” Dahl-Madsen said.

“The Australian heritage of Queen Mary plays a big part of that.”

The then princess Mary cycles in Sydney on a visit in April 2023. Photo: Getty

Governor-General Sam Mostyn will host the couple in Canberra, where they will visit be ceremonially welcomed with a 21-gun salute.

Royal reporter for Danish magazine Billed-Bladet, Marianne Singer, said the tour would garner much attention in Denmark because 54-year-old Mary was “going back to her roots”.

“It’s something really close to her heart,” Singer said. “I think you can expect her to greet as many people as she can on walkabouts.”

Traditionally, such top-tier visits also feature more formal social settings, Singer said.

“You can expect a lot of glamour at the state banquet – tiara and [fancy] dresses,” she said.

A second dinner will likely feature Danish cultural entertainment, such as ballet or opera.

The royal visit is likely to provide a tourism boost for Australia. In 2014, the trip by Prince William and Princess Kate to Australia and New Zealand brought a 125 per cent spike in booking inquiries from Britain to the Tourism Australia website.

The most recently available data shows 27,000 Danes visited Australia in 2024, the year the Mary and Frederik were promoted when former Queen Margrethe II became the first Danish monarch in 900 years to abdicate.

This is their fourth official visit to Australia, and the first since 2013.

Mary’s last official solo visit was in April 2023. She was also here in October 2024 with her twins, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine (who turned 15 in January), for her niece’s wedding in Tasmania.

After becoming queen, Mary slipped into the country for a private visit in February 2025 and was spotted browsing stalls at Hobart’s Salamanca Market.

The upcoming visit is likely to also include private time for Mary to see her family in Tasmania, including her father, John. Now 84, he has been unable to travel to Denmark for some time.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was an honour to welcome the couple back to Australia.

“It is wonderful that the visit includes many parts of our great country,” he said.

“Denmark and Australia are great friends, and together we are working to build a more sustainable, secure and peaceful future.

“This visit is an opportunity to deepen our cooperation across a number of shared interests, such as sustainability, renewable energy and innovation.”

The Danish royals – Mary and Frederik with children Prince Vincent, Prince Christian, Crown Prince Frederik, Princess Josephine, Princess Isabella – in Hobart in 2023.

The tour will likely feature a nod to Australian fashion, with Mary frequently donning Aussie labels Zimmerman and MOSS & SPY.

She and Frederik will be accompanied by a delegation of 55 companies. Denmark’s job-creating, economic-growth-generating green energy transition is a major theme of the trip.

The nation of just six million is a global leader in offshore wind energy. In 2024, more than 88 per cent of its net electricity generation came from renewables, with the nation aiming to reach 100 per cent by the end of the decade.

“This change we will make in our energy system, decarbonising, it’s not something an individual country or region has a monopoly on,” Climate Minister Lars Aagaard last week told Australian media in Copenhagen.

“We are seeking partners. We are seeking business opportunities.

“I truly believe it is a two-way street. I think we will all be winners if we succeed in building more resilient, more secure decarbonised energy systems.”

Danish Industry senior vice-president Troels Ranis said Denmark considered Australia an “attractive and reliable” investment destination and his country was keen to share its expertise on balancing renewables in the power grid.

“We know what we are good at,” he said. “We know what we can deliver. We can deliver cheap energy: Offshore wind.”

Danish energy giant Orsted and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners hope to get offshore wind projects up and running off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria.

CIP has begun construction on a large battery project to help South Australia’s energy storage as the state pushes for 100 per cent net renewable energy by next year.

CIP also hopes to develop the Murchison Green Hydrogen Project near Kalbarri in Western Australia, which would use solar and wind-powered hydrogen and convert it to green ammonia for export. However, the company is waiting for a market to kick off before it makes a final investment decision.

The state visit also comes as Australia is tries to nut out a long-awaited free trade deal with the European Union, amid the Trump administration’s tariff chaos.

“I very much expect to see concrete deals on collaboration … coming out of this visit,” Dahl-Madsen said.

-AAP

Lisa Martin travelled across Denmark as a guest of a Danish Foreign Ministry media program