ALMOST six decades after the Queen's rolling visit, a member of royalty finally set foot in Castlemaine today.

Crown Prince Frederik stepped out at the town's meat-processing plant, sporting a hair net and disinfected boots in 7C cooling rooms.

Hygiene was top priority at the Don-KP factory - just as it was during Queen Elizabeth's 1954 train tour through the Victorian goldfields.

A polio outbreak ensured the Monarch never stepped off the train at the Castlemaine stop. Local legend has it she waved from her cabin.

So when Princess Mary's husband spent 95 minutes in town, Castlemaine finally had its win in the royal-visits lottery.

Among those eagerly awaiting Frederik's visit was a blond woman set on stealing a kiss.

"If I get to pash him, you've got to snap it, OK," she instructed a photographer.

But not everybody was charmed by the prince.

Aria Grey, two-and-a-half, turned on her back heel when approached by the ever-smiling Dane outside the plant, after his crash course on snags and bacon.

"She's just a bit tired, we've been waiting here a while," her mother, Stormy Jacobs, explained.

Emma Giddings and Noah Thompson, preps from the local primary school, presented Frederik with two tins of Castlemaine Rock lollies.

Castlemaine Secondary College captains Caitlin Parsons and Cameron Fortune handed over a pair of aprons.

Cameron's assessment of the royal visitor was simple: "He was pretty chilled."

Local resident Ethel Moon, 78, was thrilled to see the prince, but admitted to hoping he would turn up with his famous wife.

"I'm a little bit disappointed that the princess isn't here too," she said.

"They are a lovely couple. So human, so natural."