Day Thirty-Seven

Before I get started, someone requested to see my inventory, so here you go:

.

A couple of notes: every night I craft a chest in which I place all the useless things I pick up during a given day such as dirt blocks and spider webs (and a flower, it would seem). This picture was taken at night, pre-chest, so things are a bit messy. I always carry at least two picks and two spades as well as a single stack of coal and a single stack wood. I live off a diet consisting solely of mushrooms and reuse the same two bowls for my stew. Obviously, this image is also missing the workbench and furnace that are currently set up in the background. So I keep my inventory fairly full, but that is okay as I rarely need to pick up new materials.

Moving on.

The night was a noisy one. There were many mobs moving around in the northern desert as well as a gathering of creepers to the east. The occasional mob stumbling into my cacti created some rather horrifying noises.

Creepers to the east.

Mobs to the north.

I tried taking more photos of mobs hitting the cacti, but the skeletons began firing at me so I gave up.

At last.

Look at them all! (back west)

Uh. Never mind.

I packed up my workbench and my furnace and started my decent. Getting off the tower is always a little scary. Each night I manage to forget which block of my small 2x2 platform is actually above the pillar and almost send myself tumbling to the ground. Part of me is certain that this is how this adventure will one day end: death by falling off my own tower. For today, though, I got down safely.

Not fooling me this time, Creeper!

Day Thirty-Seve, it seems!

(Full disclosure: I guess I should explain why there are two columns of blocks. When I loaded my game to continue my journey, for some reason I seemed to spawn one block too far east. I.e, beside my tower. So the first thing that happened was I fell to the ground, in the middle of the night. I freaked out and ran in circles for a few seconds, and then I quickly built myself back onto the tower. Moral of the story: create a wider platform to sleep on.)

I few creepers were still looming to the east, but I managed to dispatch or avoid them without any explosions. The ground was flat and bare for a time before it started to slowly incline.

.

Mountains ahead.

.

From the top of a small hill, i looked down into a valley before the cliff-face of a mountain.

.

Just to the north, the hill I was on wrapped around and joined to the northern cliffs of the valley. I headed that way to get atop the mountain. I had to watch my step, though.

You wouldn't believe the stress I put myself through to take these photos.

Just to the north of where I climbed was a wide lake.

Looking north.

.

As I clambered past the crest of the mountain on the north, I was about to descend down the eastern side when I nearly ended my entire adventure.

Hmm. Perhaps I should move a couple of cubes to the right.

After I climbed down, I looked back at the shaft and realised I had actually been walking atop a massive tunnel. It turns out I could have just entered the previous valley and walked through here instead of climbing over and nearly falling to my death twice.

Looking back south west. The valley is beyond the sunlight.

From where I was, there was no easy way down into the tunnel--nor was there any point as I would just be backtracking. Yet, neither was there a clear path to the east. I was still much higher than the ground from here. Another wide lake was stretching to the east, but I doubted I could jump and make it to the water without hitting the sand below me.

Looking east. Still need a way down, though.

Why hello there, diving board...

I walked to the edge of the outcrop, considered jumping, and backed away. Instead, I found some less-steep ground just to the north and walked down to the shore. From there, it was a quick swim across the lake.

Looking back west.

Beyond the sand was a thick forest. I tall mountain was jutting above the trees to the south. I drifted towards it for a better look.

Looking south.

Ssshhh! A pumpkin gathering!

I decided to leave the pumpkins in peace and follow the land east on the northern side of the water. However, quite quickly it became apparent that that was a bad idea.

Dead end this way.

Instead, I would have to circle back around beyond the mountains to the southern shore where the land continued east unbroken. Back past the pumpkins.

What could they be planning?

A small lake, partially underground.

Continuing east through more woods.

The lake to the north (this is beyond where my first path dead-ended).

The lake wrapped around and cut off my path, but it was a short swim to the other side. Looking back west and south, I could see that this lake was actually an inlet of an ocean from the south.

Looking back south-west, where the lake flows in from the ocean.

On the eastern shore, the forest was no more. To the south was a wide beach and beyond that the ocean I had spied from my short swim. To the east, though, was another hill.

Looking south-east.

The hill was an easy climb and seemed entirely insignificant until I reached the top.

The view east from atop the hill.

It was a fairly amazing canyon. There was no easy way down into it so instead I stuck to the southern cliffs and continued east.

Another small pool, atop the southern cliffs.

Looking north into the canyon, beyond two monuments.

Further east, beyond the canyon, the ocean again came up from the south. But also, the ground declined more gradually and I was able to walk easily back down to sea level.

Ocean from the south.

There was water to the north, too. I continued east on a narrow bridge of land through yet more woods. Another mountain began to rise up before me.

Heading east.

Approaching the mountain.

.

I started to climb around the northern side of the mountain as the sky began to darken.

Sun setting back to the west.

And it would seem I took no more photos on this day, somehow. There was no sand in sight so instead I dug a camp in the northern face of the mountain with a doorway looking over the northern water. I'm sure I will take pictures in the morning.

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.