Replying to Canon G10 Lens Error. Help

I was going out to shoot some photos the other day with my G10 and it displayed a message on the screen "lense error, please restart camera" and then the lens retracted back and forth for a bit. Now it just displays  the canon g10 logo.I have had the camera since early 2009 and have kept it in a case all the time, never dropped, always taken care of... I googled around and it seems like this is a semi-common problem but I'm out of the warranty period and would have to pay $$$ and ship the camera back to the States (I'm in New Zealand on exchange) to get it fixed by Canon.

Has anyone experienced this before with Canon cameras and how'd you resolve the issue? Any help/insight much appreciated.