At the schools and the surf clubs, the flags hung at half-mast. On the tallest sail of the Sydney Opera House, an image of a bejewelled Queen Elizabeth II beamed across the harbour.
There were speeches of great solemnity, and quiet ceremonies of memorial, bouquets of flowers left at the gates of government houses around the country.
But for many in Australia, one of the 14 realms of the Commonwealth of which Queen Elizabeth II was head of state, her death, aged 96, has been met with muted response.
The first hints of summer, after a wild and wet winter, came to much of Australia at the weekend, and the country found itself outdoors, at sports fields, on beaches, in parks and cafes. The Queen was a moment of conversation, not the centrepiece of it.
Any group as large as a nation defies generalisation, but in Australia there have been no great public outpourings of communal grief at the death of the Queen, rather a quiet acknowledgement of a remarkable life well-lived, and of the passing, with her, of an era.
Formalities, ending one reign and embedding a new, will continue for a time. King Charles III was already, automatically, King of Australia, but he was formally declared so on Sunday. Parliament remains suspended and a national day of mourning will be held.
On Saturday on the Queen’s Terrace of Parliament House in Canberra – a building which the Queen opened more than 30 years ago – wreaths were laid at the foot of a statue of Her Majesty cast in bronze.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, paid tribute: “Queen Elizabeth reigned for 70 years, in an era of enormous change. She was a constant, reassuring presence with her compassion, her decency, her commitment to service.”
There will be gradual changes too in Australia, of currency reminted, new passports and public holidays, changes in vernacular – QCs are now KCs, her honours now his.
God Save the Queen was Australia’s national anthem until 1984. It is rarely sung these days, but the new King appellation may take some getting used to.
At once an old and young country, the Queen’s death, and the ascension of King Charles III to power – instantaneous, automatic – has Australia questioning what sort of nation it is, and wants to be.
This is a young nation state, of which the Queen has been sovereign for more than half its existence: but it is, too, the land of the oldest continuing cultures on Earth.
Politically, Australia is debating the establishment of a representative Indigenous voice to its parliament, a democratic innovation that would require constitutional change, something Australians are historically wary to commit to.
Indigenous Australia’s relationship to the Queen and crown is complex. While some remembered Elizabeth fondly, for others she was the embodiment of the British imperialism that dispossessed their people of their land.
Wiradjuri academic Prof Sandy O’Sullivan, from Macquarie University, wrote: “For those saying we should be magnanimous about the passing of the Queen, a reminder that the Queen inserted herself into the lives of Indigenous people here multiple times. She wasn’t a bystander to the effects of colonisation and colonialism, she was an architect of it.”
The newly elected government has also flagged that it wants to hold a referendum in the next term of parliament on whether Australia should become a republic, jettisoning its formal connection to the monarchy, though Albanese said on Sunday that “now is not a time to talk about our system of government”.
The death of Elizabeth II has reanimated that debate, and brought the timeline into sharper focus. Within an hour and a half of her death being announced, the Australian Republic Movement issued a statement. It was respectful – mourning the Queen’s passing and paying tribute to her contribution – but it was also pointed.
“Queen Elizabeth respected the self-determination of the Australian people … The Queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum on an Australian republic in 1999, saying that she has ‘always made it clear that the future of the monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide’.”
Australians have demonstrated conflicting emotions on the Queen’s passing: an affection for the person of Her Majesty, her life of service and devotion to duty, ill-matched with a scepticism – in some quarters even disdain – for the institution she represented, increasingly seen by many as anachronistic.
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull led the last – failed – republican attempt in Australia, a rejected referendum in 1999, saying the result “broke this nation’s heart”.
But he appeared on the national broadcaster on Friday in tears, mourning the Queen’s passing. “I’m filled with great sadness,” he said. “What an amazing life, what amazing leadership.”
In Australia, too, institutions might be out of step with their membership. The University of Sydney’s carillon played a royal repertoire on Saturday afternoon: I Vow to Thee My Country followed by God Save the King.
But students there were less observant. “Oh is that what that’s about?,” one asked the Guardian. “I think it makes sense because the University of Sydney is quite an old establishment. It’s sad, but I also think we’re going to become a republic soon because of King Charles.”
Australia carries some sentiment for the new King Charles. He spent a semester of his schooling at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus in the rugged foothills of Victoria’s alps.
And, at one point, he was keen to become Australia’s governor general, an idea unpopular with both the country’s population and his mother.
Polls, over years, have consistently shown him to be less popular than the Queen: a survey run by the ABC in May this year found a slim majority of Australians – 53% – did not support Charles becoming king.
However, the monarchy leaves no space for equivocation, no room to waver. The moment of the Queen’s death was the moment Charles became King of Australia. There was no moment to consider whether the country still wanted to be part of the tradition.
At the Charles Dickens Tavern in central Melbourne, Ray Dit and John Myers remembered the Queen over pints.
“She’s had a remarkable influence on how the world is run,” Dit said. “Not by flying a flag and being demonstrative about things ... she just went about it quietly and had a quiet ear in a few quiet places.
“People have listened because of the wealth of experience that she’s had.”
Myers reflected that those grieving the passing of the Queen were, in a sense, grieving for themselves too, and for the passing of an era.
“Even if you’re not a thoroughly devoted monarchist, you still recall her events along with our own, and you find that she’s a kind of marker for our lives,” he said. “Now she’s gone, we feel a little older, and we feel that loss.”
Natasha May and Australian Associated Press contributed to this report.
