Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch

Stress relief is very important in today's hectic world and any doctor worth their salt would recommend a decent break.

So that's what I've done.

For a solid year, Mrs Hutch, me and our two children - who are old enough to live in their own houses but haven't shown any signs of doing that yet - have been planning a trip to Vietnam.

There are significant birthdays to celebrate, ancient civilisations to visit and endless different varieties of noodles which appeals to the young man in the group.

What 19-year-old wouldn't want to do a noodle pilgrimage?

Okay, the GC then

Unfortunately none of us could get more than a week off work so we went to the Gold Coast instead.

Now, in South East Asia, I'm a well-fed pale guy no matter what I do and that's not a problem.

But, in Surfers Paradise, this is an issue. I have visions of endless beaches full of people with bronzed skin and perfect bodies.

For three solid days before leaving I walked around The Mount in the evening and then supplemented this punishing regimen with some press ups.

There is literally nothing I can do about the colour of my skin. Other white people sit next to me to make themselves look brown and to catch the extra reflected rays bouncing off my legs.

So we fill our bags and head across the ditch.

One thing that strikes me almost immediately is that I needn't have worried about the fitness regime. Aussies like their beer as much as we do and have no problem publicly sweating it off in the morning.

Yeah-nah

The other thing that strikes me about Oz is the accent. We all know Australians have got a funny accent and Kiwis are more sophisticated in their manner of speech - eh?

But I was beginning to wonder why people were smiling at me. That is unusual even when I'm telling jokes but really creepy when I'm not.

In the hotel elevator a well-meaning and rather refined Australian lady actually remarked: ‘oh, that's a good Kiwi accent, where in New Zealand are you from?'

Since then I have tried speaking slowly and quietly. When I get excited the Kiwi kicks in and the smirks get bigger.

Bloody Aussies! Don't they know they're the weird ones?

Don't look down

Now, I've heard The Mount being described as a mini Gold Coast. This is a lie and consequently I was not at all prepared for the sheer scale of the buildings there. I'm not a fan of heights but we were on the 14th floor with a ‘lovely' balcony overlooking the beach and the other buildings, including the massive Q1.

It just freaks me out looking straight down over a balcony at certain death. This was just a normal balcony rail with glass panels - nothing special separating me from a 50 metre fall. I mean what the heck!

Much to the amusement of other members of my family, I can only peer over the balcony while my centre of gravity is still a good metre away from the edge.

The great thing about balconies is that you can observe the local culture. On one occasion we heard a screech of brakes followed by a loud double bang, one of which was the airbags going off.

A young guy had jumped the curb and busted the car. An older man, shirtless and with an impressive beer belly was screaming ‘look what you've done to my car you ####, $$$$,' and throwing full cans of beer at the hapless driver with deadly accuracy.

He then proceeded to chase him up the street throwing wild, hopeless punches while the skinny guy skipped and hopped out the way.

Eventually they drove off, trailing sparks from the busted wheel behind them while the fender ground to dust under the car. A local resident came out a few minutes later and propped a hub cap up against the fence.

A few minutes later the currawongs resumed their squawking. Way better than the cultural show in Rarotonga.

The art of relaxation

I'm a bit of an active relaxer and doing nothing is actually quite stressful. So we all bought three-day passes to the theme parks.

We spent a fair bit of time ‘relaxing' in long queues waiting for the next terrifying ride. The only reason I go on all the most terrifying rides is because my daughter has no fear of heights and nobody else is stupid enough to go with her.

The adrenaline rush derived from a fear of heights combined with a massive roller coaster or some other torture device is quite unbelievable.

We followed this up with a relaxing two hour drive up the M1 to Australia Zoo because the girl wants to mingle with the local wildlife.

Can't think of anything more relaxing than interacting with snakes and giant crocodiles.

Now, where's my damned thongs darl?

Next week we will assess these new councillors and see how many problems they have fixed. A week is plenty of time!