Princess Anne, Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles during their tour of New Zealand in 1970. Photo / Getty Images
Princess Anne, Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles during their tour of New Zealand in 1970. Photo / Getty Images
Fifty years before it became the site of anti-mandate protests, the steps of Parliament in Wellington were host to the Queen and members of the royal family as they toured the country in 1970.
A historic image of Her Majesty, her late husband Prince Philip, a young Prince Charles and Princess Anne all standing on Parliament's steps, flanked by thrilled Kiwi fans, has been shared to Instagram, collecting over 75,000 likes.
The caption reads: "The Queen is joined by The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales and The Princess Royal on the steps of the Parliament Building in Wellington, New Zealand following the State Opening of Parliament."
Part of the countdown to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee weekend in June, the black and white image is one of 70 that has been chosen to represent a year of the Queen's seven-decade reign.
Her family's time in New Zealand in 1970 was scheduled for the bicentenary of Captain Cook's 1770 expedition to Australia. Part of their tour included a visit to Ship Cove in Marlborough to watch a reenactment of Cook's landing there, from the Endeavour.
Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh at Ship Cove, during the royal tour of New Zealand, 18th March 1970. Photo / Getty Images
The family also took in a sea lion performance at the Marine Parade Pool in Napier, viewed a model train in Picton and met Hori Paki who was 104 and believed to be New Zealand's oldest man at the time.
Queen Elizabeth meets Hori Paki, believed to be New Zealand's oldest man, aged 104 in 1970. Photo / Getty Images
The Queen first visited New Zealand in the summer of 1953-1954, embarking on a 38-day tour that took her and her husband, Prince Philip, to 46 towns or cities and 110 functions, with three-quarters of the country estimated to have spotted a royal wave.
In 1963, on Waitangi Day the royal couple sailed into the Bay of Islands on the royal yacht Britannia, visiting ports around the country, including Nelson, from which the Duke - whose flagship Duke of Edinburgh Award programme helped thousands of young people master valuable life skills - visited the Outward Bound School at Anakiwa.
The Queen and Duke, along with Charles and Anne, were back seven years later for the James Cook bicentenary, where they debuted the royal "walkabout".
The royal couple would return for the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch four years later, three years after that to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee - thought by some to have come closest to matching the excitement of a quarter of a century earlier - and, in 1981, a short visit followed a Commonwealth Heads of Government conference over the ditch.
It might've been brief, but the 1981 tour left the country with the endearing memory of Ginette McDonald's Lyn of Tawa addressing the royals directly at the Royal Variety Performance.
The next most prominent visit came in 1990, when New Zealand marked 150 years since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Auckland hosted the Commonwealth Games, with the Queen, Duke and their son Prince Edward in attendance.
The last New Zealand visit by the pair was in 2002, with the only glitch relating to an errant Daimler.
The Daimler, only used for visits by head of state, suffered a flat battery.
As the royal couple waited on their now stationary Australia-bound aircraft, airport workers had the ignominious task of pushing the incapacitated car out of the way.
