We spent a little time this morning in the town of Kalbarri. This gave Nina a chance to complete her daily walk (and achieve the necessary 10,000 steps) and allowed me to do my morning physio exercises. There after we travelled down the coast south of Kalbarri, which has some nice coastal scenery and is part of the Kalbarri National Park.

Farther south we came to Hutt Lagoon a salty lake just inland of the ocean front. The thing of note about this lagoon is that it is colored pink. Interesting the pink coloring is natural being the result of a carotenoid producing algae that deposits beta-carotene into the water. This special algae is actually farmed in the lagoon and the facility is the worlds largest micro-algae production plant.

After the pink lake we headed inland to the Principality of Hutt River. This is a family farm that occupies a rather strange place in the political life of Australia as on the 21st April 1970 the farm seceded from the Commonwealth of Australia. The name was well known to Nina and I but the background not so much. It appears that the secession resulted from a dispute between the owner (later Prince Leonard) of the property and the Western Australian Government over wheat quotas. When Leonard complained about his vastly reduced quota the WA Government sought to introduce a law to confiscate his farm without compensation as punishment for his complaint. Leonard was obviously quick on his feet and a little smarter than the Government and he, his family and his farm seceded from Australia. The really amazing thing is that this seems to have worked. Next year, 2020, on April 21st the Province will celebrate 50 years of independence.

This account of the history of the place and events is worth a read

The last photo is of me in the camp kitchen trying to do some work without being too distracted by the flies.

The Province of Hutt River offers low cost bush camping on their property; that's where we spent the night.