Hera in Wellington and out to the Wairarapa

Ever so slowly we are getting to know Wellington and the area better. On Thursday I found somewhere to get my haircut that does a good job and isn’t expensive (well, not too expensive for me). Somehow Swan Barbers had found me on twitter (I’ve never really tried searching in Twitter, I guess you can search by location) and I took a gamble and tried one of their shops. I like that I didn’t have to wait, just walked off the street and pretty much straight into a waiting chair where my hair was cut well, my cowlick negotiated with a minimum of fuss. It helps to be able to drop in mid afternoon during the week I guess.

I also quite like the WPS (Wellington Photographic Supplies) store, lots of cool photography stuff to look at and a good service. I took my camera in for a sensor clean earlier in the week and picked it up after my haircut. It’s nice that I don’t have to spend so much time removing dust spots from my photos now.

The camera got a short workout on Saturday night. Icelandic/Kiwi singer Hera played at the Fringe Bar and I convinced Keryn and Catherine to come along. We had nice pizza beforehand at Scopa on Cuba Street (though I preferred the pizza I’d had earlier in the week at One Red Dog when we had lunch with Vanessa) and arrived at the Fringe Bar shortly after 7:30pm. The gig was a last minute thing, possibly organised as Hera was in town for the Craft 2.0 show (which we also briefly attended but gave up on due to crowds and a lack of things that interested us). The lack of promotion because of the short lead in time was reflected in a very small crowd. This was a pity, Hera sings very well and has some good songs. She is also quite funny at times and the gig was good. I took only a few photos, I wasn’t going to make a scene and wander around getting different angles and with just Hera and her guitar, fixed lighting and my bum in a seat the opportunities for a variety of shots were limited.

Photo by Brendon & Keryn

Hera playing at the Fringe Bar, Wellington

Sunday was forecast to be nice so we went for a drive up over the Rimutakas to explore some of the Wairarapa. We stopped and wandered the main street of Greytown and got a few items takeaway from the French bakery for lunch. There are some very nice shops in Greytown, especially if you like antiques or crafts. We refrained from any purchases though I did take down some web addresses to find inspiration for future photo selling ideas of my own.

Photo by Brendon & Keryn

A church in Greytown

Photo by Brendon & Keryn

One of the interesting shops

We drove through Martinborough and headed out to the pub at Lake Ferry on the south coast. We passed a few interesting buildings, a decrepit old farm building and a couple of cute wooden churches, so we had to stop so I could take a few photos. We spotted a few other cars at various places stopped and their occupants out with their SLR’s, photography in this area obviously popular on the weekend. We headed back to Lower Hutt as the sun disappeared behind the massing clouds over the Tararua Ranges. We’ll be coming back out this way for more exploring soon I hope.

Photo by Brendon & Keryn