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.