KEY POINTS:
It was the kind of weekend that couples with children rarely let themselves imagine.
Breakfast with three flat whites, none spilled, over newspapers and magazines that lasted two, long, uninterrupted hours.
Standing around in bookshops, browsing with urban intellectuals, carefully selecting the perfect tome to take to the spa bath you plan to inhabit later that afternoon. Bubbly - French - with friends, and tiny pieces of cheese unnibbled by toddlers. Dinner, a movie. Lying in bed until 11am. Returning there at 3pm.
Travel time - 20 minutes. Luxury levels? Five-star-plus. Deepest regret? That we can't do it all again this weekend.
The promise of a child-free weekend courtesy of doting grandparents allowed for delicious weeks of decision-making.
Do we spend three hours in the car, each way, heading for Rotorua's hotpools? Do we drive north to a romantic bed and breakfast at the beach? Or do we do all the adult things that are impossible with children, basing ourselves in glamorous accommodation 20km from home?
The latter won, not only because it required less driving, but because exploring Auckland without a pram seemed more indulgent than visiting a different town.
And with all that money we'd saved on petrol and pools, we could afford to stay in one of the city's glamorous boutique hotels.
So it was that at midday Sunday we came to be sitting in front of the gas fire in one of Mollies' ornate, two-storeyed suites, deciding who got the spa bath first. Mollies is one of the top small hotels in the world, with each of its 14 rooms individually decorated with a quirky range of antique and contemporary furniture, just five minutes from Ponsonby's bustle but a million miles from suburban Auckland. It's discreet, geared towards absolute attention, luxury and pampering, but no one ruins your stay by talking to you too much - as hosts at many Kiwi B&Bs are still apt to do.
We'd begun our weekend on Karangahape Rd - a place filled with child-free nostalgia of weekends in clubs and cocktail bars. It was too early for a cocktail at Match (on the corner of Pitt and Hopetoun Streets) so we sauntered into Alleluya, at the end of the glorious St Kevin's Arcade. Actually, this is a good spot for kids, thanks to the room to run around its mismatched tables, but mostly it's an eclectic mob of coffee lovers with some of the best magazines a cafe can offer.
Next stop: High St. Mecca for the hip, well-heeled and child-free and boasting what is still Auckland's best bookshop, Unity books. It was one of those days where everything was perfect: Twinset was playing its unique Kiwi blend of dub-jazz on the radio; it was cold outside but warm in the shops; when we arrived at Mollies there was an hour-long massage waiting in its candle-lit pamper rooms and a bottle of Bollinger on ice.
We could have dined in-house: the hotel has an intimate dining room with a fantastic chef, opera singing between courses and several wineries planning special degustation meals over winter. But we opted for a late-movie and Fort St burger (who takes their kids to the White Lady?), then a 10-hour sleep-in and breakfast in the restaurant.
There were other highlights: design store shopping in Ponsonby; beer and calamari in the sun at Swashbucklers down at the Viaduct and two whole days of unbroken conversation. After 36 hours in Auckland, we spent 15 minutes driving home - and felt like we'd had a week off.
- Detours, HoS
