...and now for the bad News...
The LiDAR Survey quotation has come in from Cyber Space ... The cost of the 30 minute maximum time for the survey sweep and the journey cost is more than double what we were expecting even though the company from Australia have a survey platform transiting through the area in a couple of months time....so the journey cost should be well down... and the total should be reasonable but it is not.
I am afraid the project cannot afford that kind of money. US$60,000 is way out of our league.
No LiDAR... back to square one.