Auckland vs. Wellington

A dif­fer­ent long week­end away pro­vides anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to reex­am­ine the age-old bat­tle. After our first chap­ter, Secret Agent Robyn came down from Auck­land to check out our city. This is her report…

Get­ting there: The air­port bus runs past my place every 20 min­utes. I wait­ed for 30 min­utes, but there was no sign of the bus. I start­ed to pan­ic and called a taxi. $50 lat­er I was at the air­port, but too late for check-in. Oh no! But fate smiled upon me — due to ‘weath­er’ in Welling­ton, the plane was late, so they could check me in after all. In Welling­ton, the taxi to my hotel was cheap, but slow in a way that proves the bypass was a dumb idea. Welling­ton wins this one for delay­ing my flight.

Hotel: I want­ed to stay some­where on Cuba Street, in Welling­ton’s rich bohemi­an heart­land, and thanks to the pow­er of the inter­web I got a good room rate at Qual­i­ty Welling­ton (worst hotel name ever). What I did­n’t realise is that the hotel build­ing devel­op­ment is owned by that guy who no one likes who is mar­ried to that lady who no one likes, so my indie cred took a blow. The hotel had some awful art­works in the foy­er and some dull pho­tos in the room, but I did get a top floor, cor­ner room with spec­tac­u­lar views of cen­tral Welling­ton and that broth­el on Vivian Street. Sad­ly Auck­land’s rich bohemi­an heart­land — K Road — offers no hotels, so Welling­ton wins this one by default.

Celebri­ty spot­tings: Dami­an Christie’s noto­ri­ous Metro arti­cle com­plained that Welling­ton has no celebri­ties. Well, once, at my local shops, I saw this lady who once pre­sent­ed a sports show on Sky. On a good day in Auck­land, I might see some­one like Mark Sains­bury, but no one who’d make me get all gig­gly and excit­ed. In Welling­ton, Bret Con­chords showed up at Mighty Mighty, Gio­van­ni Ribisi was also there (but I did­n’t see him), and then on Sat­ur­day, Tai­ka Wait­i­ti and Loren Hors­ley were at Hawthorn Lounge. Like, cool. Welling­ton glam­orous­ly wins.

Enter­tain­ment: With­in a cou­ple of hours of arriv­ing in the cap­i­tal, I was off to Mighty Mighty for the Welling­ton­ista / Pub­lic Address shindig, and what a shindig it was. Not only did I get to dance my arse off to Blam Blam Blam (bet­ter than their gig at the King’s Arms in Sep­tem­ber, I reck­on), but I met all these cool Welling­ton peo­ple who I’d pre­vi­ous­ly only known online. The rest of the week­end was spent hav­ing oth­er splen­did adven­tures, includ­ing tak­ing pho­tos of graf­fi­ti and stick­er art, check­ing out the Toi Te Papa exhi­bi­tion at Te Papa, a $100 art sale at the This­tle Hall, attend­ing the Madame Fan­cy Pants VIP evening, and there may also have been a bit of drink­ing involved some­where along the way. Auck­land can be just as awe­some for enter­tain­ing, but that week­end, Welling­ton was the win­ner.

Eat­ing: Well, there was the kebab restau­rant on Courte­nay Place, where skill and cun­ning was required to be able to eat our crap­py 3am kebabs at a table. And then there was the bright yel­low corn frit­ter from Vig­go Mortensen’s favourite fish ‘n’ chip shop. And the con­vey­or-belt toast and warm orange juice in my hotel’s con­ti­nen­tal break­fast buf­fet. There was some good, cheap Thai food, but I was most­ly let down by Welling­ton’s food. But in the mag­i­cal land of Auck­land, where rea­son­ably good food is avail­able 24-hours a day (yo, Den­ny’s!), Welling­ton let itself down in this cat­e­go­ry.

Drink­ing: Well, yeah, I had a few drinks. There was the deli­cious peachy Welling­ton­ista drink at Mighty Mighty, the poached pear punch at Superfi­no (sans the poached pear, but still per­fect­ly refresh­ing), the negroni with man­darin-infused gin at Hawthorn Lounge (which I could­n’t fin­ish, but it was still love­ly), lemon­ade at Alice, and a few oth­er fruity delights. I was absolute­ly tick­led to expe­ri­ence the knowl­edge­able bar staff at Superfi­no and Hawthorn Lounge, who would hap­pi­ly dis­cuss the ins and outs of cock­tails. It’s a fact: Auck­land’s drink­ing spots are nowhere near as good. Welling­ton is the clear win­ner.

Final result: Welling­ton 5, Auck­land 1. I real­ly ought to go there more often.