Well it seems the broken SD card reader corrupted the SD card that was in my camera and I lost nearly one hundred gorgeous photos from yesterday of the Pancake Rocks and a fabulous walk through a stunning mossy forest, darn It! But at least the pictures still exist in my head. Unfortunately I can’t share my head (probably luckily for you), but I can write about them. Thank goodness Georgie has some photos on her phone, although not from my solitary walk through some mossy forests.
Luckily most of the photos I took today I was able to recover from the corrupted card.
So, we started day 6 by visiting Hokitika Gorge and walking through beautiful ferny forests up to a gushing glacial meltwater river. The water was an amazing milky blue colour because of all the ground up schist rock mixed in by the abrasive power of the glacier high up in the mountain above. You can imagine how chilly the temperature of the water was!
The gorgeous mossy beech rainforests were simply throbbing with multiple species of plants all growing over the top of each other. Just like in the tropical rainforests, these temperate rainforests have an abundance of epiphytic plants hanging high off the tops of the tall trees, all interlaced with vines and creepers sprawling in and around the branches. It really seemed like there were more plants up there clinging to the tree tops than nestled down on the ground in the shade.
But it was the presence of so many species of different ferns that really had us gasping in awe. Fronds of all different shapes, forms and sizes hanging languorously from every rock and tree trunk. Multiple species of mosses formed soft squishy cushions over every surface and the whole place glowed a vibrant lush green.
After tearing ourselves away from that delightful place we drove into the township of Hokitika to do a little bit of browsing through craft shops and galleries then pushed off further South toward Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. The high mountains had smatterings of white stuff in the gullies above, each promising to impress us when we finally made to the big glaciers.
But it was not to be so, our travels included just too many little side trips (“Ooh, I wonder what’s up there?”) and we only progressed about another hundred or so kilometres down the track. Tomorrow we told ourselves, that’s when we will make it to the glaciers. Perhaps.
‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’ has not been so for the duration of our trip up until this point, the days have been delightfully warm (stinking hot the Kiwis say) and the skies clear and blue. But now, as we write this, we are perched comfortably in a somewhat luxurious BnB and gazing out through a massive glass wall at the rain clouds enveloping the tall peaks around us. Our first rain since landing in this country!
Wrap the card in alfoil or put it safely in its container and send it to me and I’ll attempt to retrieve the data.
Did you check out whether the camera has a USB connector or WiFi or Bluetooth? Any of those 3 would let you access the data without the risk of removing the SD card from the camera.
Incidentally, if the card is damaged, the card reader is probably fine. You probably damaged the card by removing it from the camera before turning the camera off. If the camera was updating data to the card or hadn’t completed a write to the card then the filing system on the card will be damaged. This is a problem with Microsoft’s VFAT filing system that you find on pretty-much all SDCards.
Nope to all that unfortunately. I tried to buy a cable that would fit any of the 3 sockets on the camera, but to no avail. So I bought a new card reader which showed the card to be cactus. And no, the camera was well and truly off when I opened it up. No wifi, no bluetooth. So I will just have to put a new card in it (the 3rd so far). Sheesh! That old card reader was bought in Namibia (!!) a couple of years ago when my other reader packed it in. They have a limited life. I will bring the beastie cards home with us in a week or so.