Life as a royal correspondent must be glamorous – all that rubbing shoulders with monarchs, flying around the country, getting a ringside seat for all the pomp and pageantry.

But what’s it like from the other side of the fence that keeps the public from the anointed ones? What’s it like from the people’s perspective?

Here’s my (half) week finding out ...

Sydney Opera House

Gee, this is boring, just waiting here and – for what? To see … them? What would seeing them achieve? Would it transform my life in any way? No, apart from the fact I need to see them for my job, but if I didn’t need to see them, would I be here? Probably not. Why is everyone else here then? Will seeing them change things for these people? Ugh, stop being so negative! It’s not about what you can get from the royals; it’s about what you can give back to the royals. Meghan is pregnant FFS. It’s a special time. Then there’s the Invictus games. They are brilliant. Harry has done more to destigmatise mental health than almost any other public figure. You love him … kind of, in an abstract sort of way. He’s the prince you would most like to have a beer with. Isn’t it good it’s not Charles and Camilla visiting. That would have been dreary. Ugh, it’s hot. I’m getting sunburnt! Where are they?

I leave my spot to go and interview some people dressed as Charles and Camilla (the people I interview are dressed as Charles and Camilla, not me). When I come back, I cannot get back in. More people have arrived. Also I am too short and can’t see anything. I take solace in the fact that there is nothing to see anyway.

I find another spot behind some prams. Prams are good to stand behind as they are not high but wide. They form a barrier and you can see over the top.

Some people from a sketch show arrive. They are dressed as royal fans and run up and down the forecourt screaming, “Harry, Harry remember me? We met in Orange in 2014! You shook my hand!” People loathe them, I can feel it. I loathe them – and I don’t even like the royals that much. We loathe them because when they are mocking the royals, they are also mocking us, mocking us for being here, for lining up in the sun, for three hours, for a glimpse … or if we’re lucky, a touch.

In my area, my people – for that is who they have now become – are on their phones. There is a ripple, the royals are there! There! Where?! There! There? There! I jump up and down on the spot. I cannot see a thing! Where? There!

I break away from the pram area and rush to the top of the crowd. It is 12 deep! They are there ... somewhere! This is a terrible idea! I can see even less here! I try to climb on a fence and fall down. There is a guy in front of me – he has the world’s biggest selfie stick and he is tall. The only way to see the royals is to look at them through his camera.

Harry and Meghan crouch down in front of the crowds at the Opera House, making it even harder for the writer to see them. Photograph: Paul Edwards/AP

I tap him on the shoulder. “Show me your phone.” He ignores me. Maybe he doesn’t speak English.

I go back down to my former section where I tell my people that the royals are up there but I couldn’t see anything. “Too short, too many people, everyone just holding their phones over their heads.” I need a ladder. The royals are moving slowly. At this rate they would get to us at 4pm. By then the sunburn would be catastrophic. I am telling my people about the tall man with the selfie stick when suddenly a car whizzes past. Our area gasps. “It’s them!”

The disappointment is crushing. My people had spent hours standing, packed into this godforsaken bit of Opera House forecourt only to see a car. “I wasted hours for this,” says one traumatised man as he packs away his Australian flag.

I try not to feel smug, but tomorrow I will going to Dubbo, where the royals are visiting a community picnic. It isn’t over for me. I will definitely see them at this sparsely attended picnic.

Dubbo

I arrive four hours early to the park to find at least 10 times the number of people at this picnic as there were at the Opera House.

All around, bits are enclosed off, and around the enclosures, people sit two or three deep. No one knows if the royals are going to come to their enclosure or if they have backed a dud, shadow enclosure. I tell anyone that will listen about my horror story from the Opera House – “they just whizzed by our section, IN A CAR!”

For four hours I shuffle around from one enclosure to the next, assessing the best vantage point for when the royals eventually arrive.

It is now of paramount importance that I see them. All this time. All this sunburn. How could it be for nothing? As I roam the parameter of the swelling crowd, never quite committing to a “spot”, always thinking the next area will be “it” – I feel something akin to existential dread.

What is life about anyway? This? I fall into a brief depression and settle on a spot. It is 20 deep, behind a school of children. But it has a television screen that shows the news (people around me boo when it shows footage of Scott Morrison) and I console myself that at least I will see them – even if it is on a screen.

The MC tells us they will be here soon and (again) a ripple of excitement goes through the crowd. Will this mean Thirsty Merc will finally stop playing?

“Remember they like to see your smiling faces – so don’t just stick a camera in their faces,” says the MC.

Harry and Meghan crouching down once again, this time in Dubbo. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

People start cheering when the screen shows the duchess getting out of a car. They are here! Hang on, this is old footage they are replaying on the screen, when they were at the Flying Doctors service. This mutes the crowd – what is real, and what is a replay? We don’t know. We don’t want to cheer at the news or get excited at old footage.

Then the announcement that they are here. Where? Here. The screen shows them getting out of a car. Is it here? Then suddenly it starts raining. Not on the screen but in real life. And not just a little bit but Old Testament style storms. This was what they built the ark for.

My area, in fact all areas, faces a choice. We either perish here in the park, trying to get a glimpse of the royals, or we flee to shelter.

The closest the writer got to the royals. Photograph: Brigid Delaney/The Guardian

At a cafe down the main street, after I purchase dry clothes from the op shop, three tables of us get talking. There is a group of women from a nearby farming community, in their 70s, and a husband and wife from Dubbo, also retired.

“Did you see anything?” I ask.

“I saw nothing!”

“I got drenched!”

“So disappointing.”

“Waited all that time.”

“I didn’t see them in Sydney, and didn’t see them in Dubbo!”

Two school girls come into the cafe with life-size cutouts of Harry and Meghan, cracking everybody up. We all pose for photos with the cardboard Meghan and Harry.

This is it. This is the closest we are ever going to get.