I wolk up at about 8am and went for a cup of tea…I thought someone had stolen out T-bags, so I drove down to the local shop to buy some more. I got all my gear together and Hannah, Patrick and I had breakfast and discussed what we were going to do for the day.
A guy from Holland who had been staying in our dorm told us about a small place called Hutt River which is Australia’s second largest country…bizarre! It was created on the 21st April 1970 by a farmer called Len Casley (see picture - left) who was apparently disgusted by the government quota on wheat production. He basically found a legal loophole (swiftly changed) which allowed him to register his land as the Hutt River Province Principality. More than 30 years later HRH Price Leonard and Princess Shirley (no, I am not joking) remain the monarchs of the only principality in the world declared without bloodshed.
We drove south of Kalbarri, along another very long sandy red road to the Hutt River Province. We drove along the drive and found that on our left was a strange sculpture of a head, a church and a government office/post office. On the right was a gift shop. We got out of the car and walked towards a strange looking old man…it was Prince Len!!! This old man took us into the gift shop and told us about the history of Hutt River…honestly I have never heard someone speak so fast…I don’t know how Patrick could understand him…I found it difficult! After the history, he tried to sell us a naff pen (we graciously declined) and headed on over to the government house where we were to have our passports stamped. They have their own currency, stamps and citizens…it is quite strange.
We got back on the open road (HWY 1) and headed north towards Monkey Mia. When we got into the Shark Bay Area we took a short detour to see the Hamelin Pool to see the stromatolites. We took another detour to see the Shell Beach which was amazing. The cockleshells at Shell Beach are 10m deep in some places and in the past have been used as a building material. I could picture Ged on his Brooklyn riding over the humps on the beach. Because they are shells the sand was hard and had the terrain of a bike track.
We headed back on the road, went through Denham and drove about 26km to Monkey Mia. It is famous for it’s bottle nose Dolphins that turn up like clockwork every day. We again booked into the YHA (which was brand new and spotless), had some dinner, watch the nanny help pushover parents and ended up watching a DVD of Connie & Carla.
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