Day Thirty-Six

The night passed slowly. I spent what felt like weeks atop my pillar, watching the skeletons and creepers wandering below on the sand. I took a few pot shots to pass the time.

.

Dawn at last.

Looking south.

Nearly time.

Flames began to lick at the zombies and I began my decent, cautious of the many creepers I could see off to the south.

Down we go.

Wait a minute. That isn't a cactus...

Correction: They weren't cacti.

With the creepers hiding at the base of my pillar removed, I jumped the remaining distance onto the sand. As soon as I did, I heard the 'ssss' as another creeper exploded behind me. I have no idea where it had been hiding. I managed to jump away before the explosion put a crater where my tower had been.

Ouch.

One block survived the explosion. I decided to keep it suspended there as a monument of some sort.

Another day.

Directly east was ocean so I followed the land south-east and soon left the desert for some grassy hills overshadowed by a giant mountain.

Heading south-east.

Closer to the mountain.

There was no way I was getting atop the mountain, but the eastern path to its north was relatively flat.

Monument on the north of the mountain.

Looking east past the foothills. A forest stretched off to the north.

Mushrooms and coal in the side of the mountain.

Beyond the mountain, the ground east was flat but another ocean (or the same ocean, I guess) began to creep up from the south. At one point, the ground opened before me to reveal a large underground cavern. I have recently been playing my 'normal' Minecraft maps and leaving this cavern unexplored was certainly difficult.

What treasures lie down there?

Sure enough, as it always does, the ocean blocked me off. Time to take to the seas.

.

.

I passed several small islands and a continent to the north.

Continent to the north-east.

Floating sand! (looking north)

Island to the south.

A while after the island a new continent flush with trees blocked my path.

.

The forest was thick and shady.

Be sunsmart, cow!

A glimmer of water to the south-east.

Islands in the southern ocean.

The ocean did not cut me off this time and the forest widened out again until my path was abruptly cut off by a small cliff that had remained hidden by the trees.

.

I dug out some steps and climbed to the peak. Looking east from the top, tendrils of the ocean had looped back around in thin rivers, but nothing I couldn't easily swim through.

.

Formations in the sand.

Across the water and beyond the sand, the ground again leveled out but this time with few trees. The occasionally mountain jutted from the plains.

.

.

.

A mountain had been blocking my view to the north, but as I turned to now look at the lake, I noticed an entire desert had been hiding just beyond the mountain.

Northern desert.

The sun was getting low and I would need to think about making camp soon. As my new form of shelter requires sand for my cacti defense, I decided to rest here in this desert rather than risk moving forward into new sandless land. Well, not that I have ever been too far from sand these past weeks, but it is best to play it safe.

Sun getting low back west.

Into the desert.

Going up as the sun goes down.

Out come the mobs.