Just in case you, like me, have never heard of this place, it is located on the Australian continent, about 600km north of Perth and consists of 18,500 acres of land. If you think this is a joke look it up on Wikipedia under this link
or check out the official PHR website
The first photo on this page shows the main street of the PHR capital Nain.
Here is the executive summary as to why this place exists:
In 1969 a [very smart] farmer had a dispute with the government about wheat production quotas, he duly declared his property an independent province and some time later a principality.
Although this sounds very simple, if you read the story on Wikipedia you soon realise that this bloke has outsmarted the government and tax office numerous times and has beaten them in their own game - Bureaucracy.
What HRH Prince Leonard has achieved is every bush lawyers dream. At one stage, when the Tax Office was instructed to break him he declared war on Australia (and got laughed at) but 3 days later declared that hostilities had seized and the war was over. The ramification of this step was that under the Geneva convention the government in possession of the land at the end of the war is the undisputed owner of the land regardless of wether the warring governments officially recognise each other. Since Australia is a signatory to the Geneva convention the government had no choice but to abide by it and therefor PHR was outside the Tax Office's jurisdiction.
On arrival in the principality we were greeted by Prince Arthur Wayne Casley, Duke of Nain and Earl of Tabor, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
He showed us through the government office and permitted us to visit the shearing shed where shearers were busy taking the wool of some 700 sheep.
The kids certainly enjoyed holding and petting the lamb and learning what the different piles of wool were.
After leaving PHR we called in at a couple lookouts with spectacular views of the indian ocean. From our vantage points we observed a pod of Dolphins, many fish and a Dugong cruising up the coast.
The afternoon was spent back at the town jetty with some family fishing. Although there weren't any big fish, one Black Bream was landed but at 23cm is still 2cm short of minimum size. Plenty of small Tailor were caught and we kept some for live bait but by nightfall they were dead bait.
After receiving some advise from another fisherman on the jetty we decided to try some night fishing. Around 8pm we went back to the jetty to see if we could hook a Mulloway. We started using our self caught dead bait, then caught some more little ones and put them on as live bait but couldn't attract any fish whatsoever.
After changing over to Mulies, a popular WA baitfish, we immediately had hits and soon managed to land 3 Mulloway but all under size at less than 40cm. After removing the running sinker and fishing unweighted Mulies we finally landed a 60cm take-home Mulloway. First fish I ever caught on a ganged hook.
It was nearly midnight by the time we returned to the caravan and fell into bed.
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