Update from Christchurch

Hello all, and greetings from us both from Christchurch. We completed some of our West Coast trip, stopping at Westport, Greymouth and Hokitika. Then, disaster struck re: Camcorder, which decided to stop working just as we were about to head to the Glaciers and White Heron Colony, prime videoing locations! So, after waiting in Hokitika for a few days (it was a Public Holiday Weekend), we decided (after being advised) to change our plans and head to Christchurch where there are several video repair firms. Unfortunately, Canon prefer to repair their own cameras (no service diagrams etc made available to third parties), so we had to seek out the local Canon Repair Shop, who told us they have to send the camcorder to Auckland for repair, which may take 3 -4 weeks, and they were out of loan equipment! Disaster!!! However, on a more positive note, we spoke with the Canon folks in Auckland and a nice lady said mark it for her attention and they will escalate it to the front of the queue, thus taking two weeks hopefully, and she also said there was a known fault with the CCD and it would be repaired free of charge, assuming that was the cause of the fault. So, not all bad, all things considered. We are now taking our time to explore Christchurch, and have brought forward our registering with work agencies etc so we can make of the most our time waiting around for the video camera. Just goes to show, you can't plan too far ahead, you never know what's around the corner! Just uploaded some more photos from the West Coast and Christchurch.