Blogs from Hutt River Province, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

I think for this entry I will merge two days together. These two days were basically just the return journey- having leisurely wound our way up from Perth to Exmouth over five days and taking in the sights along the way, we now had two days to cover the same distance. The first day was almost exclusively spent in the bus, just with fuel/ toilet/ food breaks. By the end we had passed from the 'bush' landscape which had been so prevalent over the past few days into an area of arable farmland. In fact we actually spent the night at Northbrook Farmstay near a small town called Northampton. This was a picturesque area in a rural, farmy sort of way, and was the site of the (by now somewhat diminished, since we lost almost half ... read more

We left Geraldton this morning and had a pretty drive north - each side of the road wheatfields as far as the eye could see. At each town there was a very big silo and sometimes the town that was marked on the map was just a very big silo. South Australia and Western Australia must produce so much grain - we've seen huge silos everywhere in both states. We saw we were in the region of the Hutt River, which, of course, meant a visit to the Principality. Many Australians will remember the battle between Leonard Casley and the Australian, or principally the Western Australian, government in 1969 over wheat quotas being reduced, which resulted in Mr. Casley and his Hutt River property seceding from Australia in 1970. He then proclaimed his property the Hutt ... read more

We headed off to Hutt River province which is independent from oz. Prince Leonard was a clever man and the Oz governement, due to surplus, told Hutt River province they could only farm 216 hectares of land and not farm the 20,000 that he had. this was not acceptable as Prince leonard looked after a lot of families and this would not be enough to feed them all. they were not allowed to trade with other countries. Leonard wrote a letter to the government saying that it wasn't acceptable, and to lift this rule or there would be consequences. They wrote back apparently saying how sad, too bad. So Leonard wrote back saying that the people of Hutt River province declared war on Oz. A day later he wrote another letter saying Hutt River province surrender, ... read more

Early start - which soon became a common practice on this tour! Our first stop was a wildlife centre in Greenough, where we fed some gorgeous kangaroos, & saw white dingoes, camels and many snakes. Being the last one in the group to sit down due to Ellie's fondness of the kangaroos, she was given the task of handling all the snakes, and putting them around all the nervously awaiting group members necks. At first what seemed a daunting task, Ellie became quite confident with the various snakes, even though they kept increasing in size. It helped knowing that they were non-venomous, although if agitated they may be quite capable of harming someone. The extreme tightness felt as two of the snakes clung around each person's neck was quite an interesting experience. Even Nick has become ... read more