Cafes with interesting decor - Fun places to visit

Cafe culture is alive and well in New Zealand.  Everywhere you look there are cafes and most of them are smart, chic and, to be honest, pretty generic in design.  The style of choice seems to be concrete, industrial, sleek and modern.   Some make a nod to individuality with added shelves holding interesting artifacts or pot plants and/or wall art however generally they are out of a playbook of cafe design. I'm always happy to have coffee in these cafes, however, just for a bit of fun I like a visit to cafes with a difference, cafes which take on a theme and are unique in design.  A visit to these types of cafes is like a bit of escapism from the everyday world.

Here are a few that I have found around Auckland and I have added one of my favourite cafes from Wellington as well.

Divine Patisserie, Ormiston Mall, Auckland

You can't help but smile when you enter Divine Patisserie.  The pretty pink flower theme is carried right through from the decor to the chairs and china and even to the take away cups.  You can choose to sit in a semi private booth completely lined with pink roses or under the branches of a delicately blossoming tree in the centre of the cafe. Even on a wet, miserable day you are transported to spring. Their selection of divine cakes and pastries certainly befits their name.

Left: One of a few rose covered booths

Circus Circus  447 Mt Eden Rd, Mount Eden, Auckland

This cafe with, as you would expect, a vibrant circus theme, is a bit of an institution in Mt Eden. Opened in 1995 and very popular, especially with locals - it is often hard to find a seat - The circus theme is everywhere you look from the exterior striped awning to the menu to the clowns, jugglers and circus animals hanging from the ceiling or perched on ledges.  It's a family friendly fun place with plenty for children to look at while you enjoy your coffee. The cafe extends into a large house next door with a covered outdoor seating area. Circus Circus becomes a restaurant in the evening. The food is good and service is outstanding. 

At Circus Circus acrobats, clowns and trapeze artists hang from the ceiling and a lion roars from the top of the food cabinet.  Even the menu has a circus theme.

Shamrock Cottage, 73 Selwyn St, Cockle Bay, Auckland

Shamrock Cottage dates back to 1847 when it was opened as The Royal Hotel. It passed through a number of hands before being restored and opened as the present tea rooms in 1969.  It is a Category 11 listed historic building and to have coffee or tea in this elegant, old world setting truly is a step back in time. The building was first named Shamrock in 1894 by Captain William Daldy, a famous Aucklander, after the first schooner he commanded and it is absolutely charming.  There are three small rooms where you can enjoy your morning or afternoon tea plus a spacious rear garden complete with the original well, there are also a few tables on the front verandah. The original design and decor has been maintained as much as possible which is an important part of its charm. You can order light meals and there is plenty of cabinet food to suit all dietary requirements.  High teas can be organised on request. Shamrock Cottage is a favourite of mine, I love to stop there when I'm in that part of Auckland.

The Breakfast Club,  Shop 703 Botany Town Centre, Chapel Rd, East Tamaki, Auckland

Harking back to the good old days of drug stores or, as we called them in New Zealand, milk bars, the Breakfast Club, one of a chain in Auckland, entices you in with its bright, pink neon counter. It has a really buzzy, cosy diner vibe. The walls are decorated with an interesting mix of iconic pictures of film stars and musicians, giving you plenty to enjoy looking at and enjoy remembering. Ahhh those were the days!  The Breakfast Club is popular with all age groups, some of the pancake creations are eye boggling and the day I visited there was a queue waiting to get in. Good coffee and tasty cabinet food.

Smith the Grocer, Old Bank Building, Lambton Quay, Wellington

I've always loved this cafe and make a point of a visit whenever I'm in Wellington. Using an old grocery store theme and decorated with old scales, tins of vegetables and photos of interiors of 1930s grocery stores, the vibe is nostalgia. Set in a truly lovely historic building in what was once a courtyard but is now a covered atrium this is a step back in time, there is just such a good feeling about the place.  The ceiling is very high and an elevator (not accessible from the cafe) to higher floors can be seen moving up and down within the cafe.  There is a choice of three different areas to sit.  If you want a quiet intimate place you can go down a couple of stairs to a dark and quiet room or you can sit within the bright and bustly main room, my personal favourite.  If you love people watching you can sit outside in the elegant, beautifully preserved mall. The food and coffee are good. 

                                                            Below: The lift shaft going up through the cafe

                             Looking out into the beautifully restored Old Bank Mall

Junk and Disorderly, 164 Balmoral Rd, Balmoral, Auckland

If you enjoy fossicking among curios, antiques and junk then Junk and Disorderly (don't you love the name?)  is the place for you. Located in a large warehouse, with a good sized off road car park, the shop is overflowing with "stuff", it's a mind blowing treasure trove.  For afficionados it's the place to spend a good few hours picking and poking.  After all that time you are certain to need a pick me up so conveniently located in a corner of the shop is a coffee counter. In keeping with the shop it is decorated with memorabilia and a large collection of old mugs and biscuit tins of various shapes and styles.  The coffee counter wasn't open on the day I visited, it is open only from Wednesday to Sunday.

The Junk and Disorderly coffee counter certainly carries the antique store vibe.  Seating is outside.

The information in this blog is correct as at February 2026.  

The Stunning Te Waihou Walkway and Blue Springs - Putaruru, New Zealand

 New Zealand is crammed full of beautiful places but despite having lived here all my life I find there are always more to discover.  I had long planned to walk along the Te Waihou River to visit the Blue Springs but never quite got around to it.  As luck would have it it was a planned hike with the Auckland Global Trekkers hiking group, which I have joined  recently, and was an opportunity I couldn't let pass by.

At the start of the walk from White's Rd end.

This sublime riverside walk is located in the rolling green farmlands of the South Waikato between the towns of Tirau and Putaruru and about a two hour drive from Auckland. You can enter the walk from either end, the Leslie Rd entrance is a shorter walk, taking about 15 minutes to reach the spring. It is suitable for wheel chairs and baby buggies. Our group of 42 was keen to follow the length of the trail so entered from Whites Rd to walk the 9.4 kilometres return.  It is not particularly challenging although there were a few muddy patches, which will have dried up by summer, and a couple of steep staircases to negotiate, but all in all not arduous. Recent work on the track has provided boardwalks and new steps with handrails.

From the entrance you pass grazing cows which fix you with a quizzical gaze as you pass. The path then leads through wetlands along the river banks.  The view of emerald green water plants under the crystal clear flowing water, backed by limestone cliffs, is stunning. The water, fed by the Blue  Spring, flows at the rate of 9240 gallons a minute and maintains a constant temperature of 11 degrees all year round.  From it's  source on the Mamaku Plateau it takes 100 years to filter through limestone  before producing water said to be amongst the purest in the world and which is used for around 70% of the bottled water sold in New Zealand.

Spectacular -  plants under crystalline water and backed by basalt cliffs

As the track rises you are soon walking through lush native bush and past small bubbling waterfalls, (spot the tiny waterwheel). The ambiance  is calm, restful, the only sounds are the flowing water and bird song, balm for the soul.  After a while you come to the Blue Spring bubbling up from deep below. It is aptly named due to its glorious aquamarine colour. 

The Blue Spring - 100 year old water bubbling up from below the earth

We stopped at a rest area just beyond the spring for a lunch break and chat before heading back along the track to the Whites Rd carpark. It was a pleasure to enjoy the scenery a second time and we spotted things we had missed on our first walk through.

Later we took a short walk along the Waikato River in the town of Cambridge.  It was pretty but very hard for it to compete with the Te Waihou walk.

The Waikato River

 I loved this hike. It was a fantastic   day out with a great group of people   in a stunningly beautiful location. To   walk it you require only a moderate   level of fitness and there is   the option of taking the shorter   route  for the less fit. 

On the Te Waihou walkway

Note:  If you need to use bathrooms use the ones at either end of the track.  The one within the track was virtually unusable, a shame because the maintenance of the track was exceptional but sadly the toilet seemed to have been overlooked.

The Daintree River, Rain Forest and Mossman Gorge, Queensland, Australia

 To enter the Daintree Forest you first cross the Daintree River on a car ferry.  It is an apt way to enter this incredible prehistoric world, home to the Kuku Yalanji people for at least 60,000 years.  The Daintree is reputed to be the oldest rain forest on earth at approximately 135 million years, millions of years older than the Amazon rain forest.  It is also home to a large number of unique, plant, animal and insect species found nowhere else in the world.  Listed as a treasure under the UNESCO World Heritage Site it is a fascinating place. Our small group was taken for a walk through the forest with our guide pointing out some of the unique plants and insects along the way. The plants are diverse and the majority are amongst the oldest  in the world.  Many are poisonous or very spiky.  We were shown a particular tree that produces strychnine and were warned not to touch it.  We didn't! The forest is shady and although it can be very humid the temperature was pleasant for our visit.  One thing I did notice was the absence of bird song or any earthy bushlike aroma.  Our guide told us that the trees high above would be full of birds but they have learned to call only when necessary.  

Boardwalks protect the roots of the lush, tropical vegetation.

Primeval mud.  You can really imagine dinosuurs walking here

The one bird we were hoping to spot was the cassowary, the large flightless bird native to New Guinea, North Australia and some surrounding islands.  They are the third largest bird on earth growing to 6ft tall and can weigh more that 70 kilos. They are vital to the life and health of the forest as they disperse over 100 species of plant seeds in their droppings.  Shy by nature they can become very dangerous and aggressive if cornered or if their nests are approached, lashing out with large, lethal claws. Apparently they, and some lizards, are the closest living things to the dinosaurs which would once have roamed this forest. We had eagerly peered into the trees hoping to spot one and were just about to give up and leave the forest when suddenly a male and his chick walked right across the path in front of us.  We were thrilled, watching as the adult led his chick down to the stream to drink.  Our guide was as excited as we were, he said in all his years guiding he had never seen cassowaries drink from a stream.

You can just see the feathers of the chick at lower left of the male. It is the males who look after the young

 Lots of ohs and ahs and photos and then, well satisfied, it was time for us to go for a cruise on the Daintree River for a bit of crocodile spotting. We were in luck, right at the start of out cruise we spotted a croc sunning itself on the river bank, actually it was the only one we saw on the hour long cruise up and down the river. Nevertheless we did see some beautiful birdlife including the graceful  white heron. It was a pleasant restful cruise through the rain forest with us all fervently hoping we didn't end up in the river full of crocodiles.

We all enjoyed a tasty fish lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Mossman River, and a quick stop at Daintree Ice Cream Company for a small tasting pot of exotically flavoured ice cream. 

Flavours were wattle seed, sapote and mango

Then to our final stop for the day, Mossman Gorge.  Such a beautiful place and a great way to end a special day. The gorge was glowing in the afternoon sun which was bouncing off the rocks and forested slopes and reflecting in the pristine waters of the river. We took a short stroll along the pretty forested river bank and spent some time mesmerised by the flowing water before reboarding our bus and heading back on the long drive to Port Douglas. 

This trip was a great experience, I would recommend it to anyone who loves nature, it had been on my "must go to" list for a long time.  It was  a great privilege to walk through such ancient forest, pretty much unchanged for millions of years.

Note: This was a small group tour of only 8 people plus the guide. We left from and returned to Port Douglas approximately 68kms each way.

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia

 It's an intriguing name, isn't it? Why would a gloriously pristine beach bordered by ancient rain forest have such a depressing sort of name?  Well the answer is that it was on a reef just beyond the beach that Captain James Cook's ship, HM Endeavour, ran aground on a coral reef in 1770 and began to take in water. The ship was in danger of sinking but with remarkable ingenuity the hole was plugged sufficiently for the ship to limp up the coast to a safer  beaching where it could be repaired properly. The damage to the ship was substantial causing Cook to state that this was where all his trials and tribulations began. That history was enough for me to want to visit the Cape, not only am I an enthusiast for the voyages of James Cook but it sounded so enticing,  and despite having been to Queensland on several occasions I had never been up the coast that far. 

Cape Tribulation

It is around a two hour drive (110ks or 68 miles) from Port Douglas where I was staying recently so I booked myself  onto a day tour  which included a walk in the Daintree rain forest, a cruise on the crocodile infested Daintree River and a visit to the beautiful Mossman Gorge.  I will write about them in a future blog.

Where the rain forest meets the sea

Cape Tribulation is the nearest mainland point to the world heritage Great Barrier Reef.  It is also where the rain forest comes right down to the shore.  It is wonderfully isolated, (there are no buildings on the beach), with clean pure air and silence, there is no hustle and bustle and no pollution.  Surrounded by hills the climate is equatorial with heavy rainfall and warm humid temperatures making it ideal for growing tropical fruit which a few hardy souls (the total population is only about 120)  do in small clearings back in the forest.  The area has been home to the Kuku Yalanji people for 50,000 years and has little changed in all that time.  It felt like an enormous privilige to be there and to enjoy its beauty and solitude.  It is very hard to find such ancient unspoilt places in the modern world which still look as they did back in the time of the dinosaurs. 

Discussing the forest and the history of the area over morning tea

Our small tour coach pulled into a tiny clearing well back from the beach and the 8 of us on the tour went for a walk along the golden arc of the bay.  The white sand is as fine as icing sugar and with our footsteps being the only ones on the beach it was quite a moving sensation of stepping way back in time. While we were relishing our walk our guide was setting up a substantial morning tea of fresh tropical fruit, hot drinks and muffins at a picnic area hidden back in the forest. There are clean, well maintained toilets not far from the picnic area, also hidden from view from the beach.  I am so pleased I visited Cape Tribulation, it has long been on my 'to do' list and was as beautiful, remote and unspoilt as I had hoped it would be.

DIVA - a sublime look at Divas through the ages

Ingrid Bergman"s costume forJoan of Arc 

1948. Very short, considered daring at the time

 In the 19th century the word Diva was used to describe hugely gifted female opera singers.  The word Diva comes from the Latin for goddess and that was how many saw outstanding opera singers back then.  They were powerful, creative women at a time when women were striving for equality, however, they also had their detractors, those who thought they were becoming too powerful, too big for their boots and not sticking to the acceptable social mores of the time.  Gradually the term came to include actresses like Sarah Bernhardt who was one of the first stars to cultivate the idea of "celebrity". The word Diva has evolved through time to include both genders, and all types of performers such as rock stars and dancers, particularly those who have pushed the boundaries and have used their status to comment on societal issues like equality and inclusion. 

Vivien Leigh's costume from
 the play Duel of Angels 1958

It was really with the development of talking movies that actresses who
were still considered inferior to men took on the battle for equality. Unfortunately they then became labeled as difficult or demanding and the term Diva took on a negative conotation.  Today that negativity can still be associated with a difficult or demanding star but it has also become a term of admiration for stars who are able to cross boundaries, reinvent themselves and use technology, skill and talent to create spectacular shows. 

Quote from Bette Davis.  Thankfully those days are long gone.

The latest exhibition, DIVA, at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, follows this evolution from its earliest days until the present, it showcases an amazing collection of costumes (courtesy of the V & A Museum, London) combined with plenty of written information to accompany them.  Each visitor is supplied with a headset which plays the appropriate music at each display.  

Elton' John's flamboyant 50th birthday outfit inspired by the court fashions of Louis XIV. The galleon on his wig was mechanised and sent out puffs of smoke. The costume was so large and heavy John had to be transported to his party on a furniture truck.

Lady Gaga's Valentino gown from the Golden Globe awards 2019
Bjork's 2021 gown and mask in the background

Tina Turner's Flame Dress designed by Bob Mackie 1977

One of Prince's stage costumes

A few of Cher's spectacular, flamboyant costumes, real Diva attire.

It is a sublimely curated, educational and exciting exhibition.  The mind boggles when looking at Elton John's 50th birthday outfit or Cher's enormous head dress. You ask yourself "How on earth did they move in them", they are certainly outfits befitting Divas. I have only shown a few of the outfits here, there are many, many more. If you get the chance and certainly if you live in Auckland this is a "must see" exhbition.  It's fabulous.