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Australia - 2005-05-30 - Hutt River Province Principality - Meeting the Prince & Seeing the Kingdom
After the time spent in Geraldton getting things sorted out we decided
to leave the country. Yep we left Australia & went to Hutt River Province
Principality. On April 21, 1970 Len Casley, who had been disgusted with
government quotas, seceded from the Commonwealth of Australia creating
the Australia's second largest country. His Royal Highness Prince Leonard
& Princess Shirley are monarchs over the land & are the only country without
bloodshed. They declared war on the country of Australia & a few days
later declared victory without a shot being fired. He has his own currency
(tied directly to the Australian dollar), stamps, church, post office,
country seal, passport & you get a visa stamp on entry & on exit. It is
all done in a very efficient manner & he takes it seriously, in a fun
way. He has land equal in size to the country of Singapore, but a much
smaller GDP :) As a Prince he has knighted people who have helped him
with things & has about 8 residents. He is quite a smart guy & it was
cool to meet him. When we first go there we were with the prince alone
& he showed us around. There is currency from all over the world. He has
a lot of important people he knows & ambassadors all over the world (you
just can't make this stuff up). He had a passport machine that shows special
hidden marking which he uses to show you special things about your country
(the same customs agents use at the Australia border) & he even showed
us how to check that our currency was real. He also told us that the reason
people shake with their right hand is because that was the side the sword
was on in old times & extending that hand was the non-threatening way
of meeting. The government has tried unsuccessfully to make him come back
to the government, but he is there to stay. They did close the loophole
he used (he was a lawyer), so this is the only other country there is
in Australia. It was a really great stop & the Prince was a rather unique
guy.
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