Hutt River Principality

This was a real oddity on the way down the coast - The Hutt River Principality. Back in the 1960's the owner of the land here was having some pretty tough quotas put on his crop production. In response, the owner, who is a pretty smart individual, managed to root out some really old legal technicalities in the Treason Act allowing him to 'cede' from the commonwealth. The land is now technically a separate country. A few years later, just to cement his claim to soverignty, he sent a telegram to the Australian government declaring war and quickly followed it up saying that military action had ceased. The government, of course, got a great laugh out of this. But a week later he sent them another note informing the government that under law a claim to soverignty, emergining from a state of war undefeated must be recognised as a state. Very clever!



We were able to get our passports stamped, go to his post office, buy stamps, get currency and I even met Prince Leonard himself!!!