Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales leaves Australia during eight-month deployment
The £3 billion warship sailed from Portsmouth in April for the mission which involves visits with 40 countries across the Mediterranean, Middle East, south-east Asia, Japan and Australia.
As the sun sets on HMS Prince of Wales, we bid farewell to @COMUKCSG after an incredible visit. The Carrier Strike Group's first return since 1997 has strengthened our partnership and deepened UK-Australia ties. Until we meet again 🇬🇧🇦🇺#UKAustralia #CSG25 @SarahMacFCDO pic.twitter.com/aq9853GWQk
— UK in Australia 🇬🇧🇦🇺 (@ukinaustralia) July 29, 2025
A Royal Navy spokesman said that the carrier had sailed from Darwin having taken part in the Talisman Sabre exercise as well as acting as a host for diplomatic visits, including from representatives of the indigenous Larrakia people.
He said: 'The flagship hosted a string of senior British and Australian politicians, including Defence Secretary John Healey and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, his Australian counterpart Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.
'The aircraft carrier has also served as the impressive setting for a business and industry event, discussing the growing importance of defence links between London and Canberra.
'And the 2,500-plus personnel in the task group have enjoyed down time to explore the largest city in Australia's Northern Territory.'
Able Seaman Owen Altoft, an 18-year-old chef from Newcastle who is on his first deployment, said: 'It's an experience being out in Australia.
📸.@HMSPWLS in Darwin, Australia 🇦🇺#CSG25 | @COMUKCSG pic.twitter.com/PXI7QpeHdg
— Royal Navy (@RoyalNavy) July 28, 2025
'This deployment has been great – seeing what the world's like, seeing different places, cultures and food. It's what I signed up for.
'I tried kangaroo at the local food market and would try it again in a restaurant.'
The Royal Navy spokesman said that the next stage of the deployment would involve combined air exercises with the carrier's F-35 jets and the Japanese navy.
The Hon Pat Conroy MP visited @HMSPWLS while in Darwin. A great opportunity to demonstrate our joint capabilities, discuss partnerships and working together in the Indo-Pacific 🇦🇺🤝🇬🇧 #CSG25 #AUKUS pic.twitter.com/0znRz5wU18
— UK Carrier Strike Group (@COMUKCSG) July 29, 2025
He said: 'Both nations operate the same short take-off/vertical landing version of the stealth jet, the B variant, although Japan has not flown the fifth-generation strike fighter for quite as long as the UK.'
Earlier in the deployment one of the stealth fighter jets was stranded at an airport in Kerala, India, after suffering mechanical issues.
After the week-long exercise with Japan, the carrier will continue with its visit to the country while some vessels from the UK task group will head to South Korea.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
What you need to know about Heathrow Airport's £21bn expansion plans
Heathrow Airport has submitted plans for a third runway, with the runway and airfield estimated to cost £21 billion, and the overall project £49 billion. The proposed expansion aims to significantly increase annual flight capacity to 756,000 and passenger numbers to 150 million, necessitating a new 3,500-metre runway and the tunnelling of the M25 motorway. Heathrow anticipates securing planning consent by 2029, with the new runway becoming operational within a decade of approval. Proponents, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and easyJet, argue the expansion will boost investment, trade, create jobs, and potentially lead to lower airfares. The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, and environmental organisations like Friends of the Earth oppose the plans, citing concerns over noise, air pollution, and the UK 's climate change commitments.
BBC News
6 minutes ago
- BBC News
Free bus travel scheme for under-18s in Barnsley starts
A scheme to provide free bus travel for under-18s has people living in Barnsley who are aged between five and 18 will be able to claim free transport for all journeys within South Yorkshire that start or end in the scheme will be active between 07:00 - 21:00 (BST) - including during weekends and school will need to present a free Barnsley MiCard upon boarding the bus, which can be applied for online or via post. The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority has committed up to £1m to the initiative, with Barnsley Council contributing £ two-year scheme will be trialled until August will continue to be allowed to travel free of charge. Carly Hambleton, a course leader at Barnsley College, said the scheme would help boost said the college already offered free transport to students, but the free buses could be overcrowded and did not travel to every area in the added that money for travel was transferred directly to students' bank accounts, and those from lower income background sometimes gave this to their families to help with living costs."They choose to eat or put the gas and electric on, rather than pay for their bus to college, so then their attendance goes down, and that impacts their grades and options for university."She also said it would benefit her own children when they stayed with their father, who did not had used taxis when they travelled, she said, because it was cheaper than using the bus. Parent Stephanie Brown, 34, said she had "tended to stay at home more often than not" with her children to save money on bus fares, which was "frustrating" during school said travelling would be "much easier" under the parent Rebecca Derbyshire, 39, said her teenage son struggled to get into town because they lived "seven or eight miles away", but he could now be more independent and take the bus instead of asking for a lift. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
6 minutes ago
- BBC News
Kettering traders hope for better times after town's hardships
Independent traders in a town that has lost its only cinema and several big-name stores said they believed better times could be ahead despite "a lot of hardship".The Odeon in Kettering closed in January despite local opposition, and its branches of Marks & Spencer, New Look and Argos have also gone in recent business owner Daisy Farrar-Hayton said the loss of the cinema "seemed like the last nail in the coffin" but that locals were still "trying to bring out the good in Kettering".Lee Watkiss, the Green Party leader of Kettering Town Council, said efforts were under way to create "much more footfall" in the town. Ms Farrar-Hayton is the co-owner of Irregular Art Hub, one of a number of small businesses located in the The Yards shopping quarter off Market said that the town's high street looked "sad" at first glance, but added that "once you scratch the surface there are a lot of people who really care about the town"."Lots of people locally are really trying to bring out the good in Kettering," she said."There's a lot of litter picks, like the big Kettering clean, and people just coming out and they're always painting columns around the town centre and really sprucing up the town, so people do really care."It's definitely faced a lot of hardship and a lot of places have shut down. There's not many local independent shops apart from at The Yards." Mark James, who co-owns Irregular Art Hub with Ms Farrar-Hayton, said: "I think people always like the phrases 'use it or lose it' and 'shop local', but it's really easy and we're all guilty of just going online [to shop]."I think that people do need to back local and shop local if they want to have these things on their doorstep." Another trader at The Yards, Lindsey Atkins, said she wanted the shells of shops previously occupied by big names, such as the former Gala Bingo Hall, to be repurposed to provide services which better served the town's bingo hall closed in 2018 and Ms Atkins and her business partner Beccy Hurrell have proposed a scheme to transform the space into a mixture of health services, a cafe, performing arts spaces, and a music progress on the project, which has been backed by local singer Mae Stephens, has been hindered by funding Atkins and Ms Hurrell, who run Beccy Hurrell Voice and Arts, lost out on funding they had applied for when there was a change of government last year, but they remain hopeful. Ms Atkins said: "The main reason we're hopeful is because the people want it, the town wants it, everybody we speak to wants it. The business owners want it. "We don't want to do this as a quick fix for now. We wanted to do something for the longevity and the future, and the communities within Kettering and North Northamptonshire as a whole. So 100% [we] believe something can be done." Other traders share the feeling of Oslizlok, from the Eunice Artisan Bakery - also located at The Yards after previously trading in the town's market - said that although the departure of traditional big names from the high street had been a blow, it had opened up the opportunity to champion local businesses."The small local businesses, we all believe that it's going to be better," she said. "When we opened the bakery here, the other traders [were] saying that they didn't see that many people [shopping] around here previously."We just brought our customers with us [and they] realised that something [other independent shops] are around going on. "Hopefully, all the units will be full of local traders. That's the most important thing." For the town council, factors such as the Covid pandemic and the growth of online shopping have had a big impact."It is a very difficult time. I think that towns have changed over the last sort of one to two decades," Watkiss said."What we're trying to do though is look positively at the future and at how we can shape the town centre for what the community wants."So looking at probably bringing more leisure into the town centre... bringing other sort of units into the town, maybe like NHS units, might be things like GP surgeries, dental surgeries - but anything that can generate footfall into the town."I think that everything that we're looking at doing as a parish council is working towards working with all the stakeholders and making this a town that people are proud of, want to invest in, and that people want to visit." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
