MOLI VIEW™

To be honest, I found Auckland a bit underwhelming and milquetoast. I might have thought that the whole country was like that until I got to cool, funky, scrappy Wellington, located on the blustery south coast of North Island.

True, the winds set a chill in my bones that was barely thawed out, even when the mid-day sun was shining (be diligent with lip balm, moisturizer, and sunscreen). But after I picked up the necessary thin merino wool items everyone wears, at the eco-shop Untouched World, I was good as gold. One of the first bonuses for me is that Wellington is a walking city and also has much better public transport than Auckland. Once dropped off at Floriditas for lunch on the bohemian and oddly named Cuba Street, I was able to maneuver easily without a car.

I never got a straight answer about where Cuba Street got its name (there is some story about an early settler ship called the Cuba), but it's a theme the locals have obviously run with. Upper Cuba Street hosts the wonderful, but totally apolitical, café Fidel's, as well as the restaurant Bodega, the Havana Bar, and the Cuba Café. I was in hog heaven when I stumbled upon several consignment and secondhand shops, as well as the straight nightclub hysterically named San Francisco Bath House (the three gay bars in town are not as fab and have very cryptic names, such as Someone Knows, which I hope is ironic).

The tony restaurant Logan-Brown, with the famed chefs from the TV show Hungry for the Wild, marks the end of the more boho section. You'll notice right away that lower Cuba Street is much more posh, with the restaurant and hang-out called the Matterhorn, the Australasia design store Dr. Rex Royale Retail Therapist, and right at the end, the giant boutique of New Zealand fashion star Kate Sylvester. If you're lucky, you'll also run into the homeless Wellington icon "Blanket Man," an elderly Maori man in a diaper with dreadlocks who rants and raves incoherently while everyone who passes him smiles.

Previous Page  1  2  Next Page