Minecraft: Traveling North to the Waterfall

After my last round of mining, I thought it was time to explore above ground a bit more. (Especially since I now had a compass, so I knew I wouldn’t get lost!) When working on the rooftop, I’d gotten curious about what was north of the house, past the arch and body of water that I’m on the edge of.

First, though, a picture of the outside of the house: you can see the arch I keep talking about, the second and third floor windows, the third floor balcony:

Looking up at my house from outside.

And here’s the bay that I wanted to travel across:

View north, across the bay

After going a bit further, I could see the spire with a waterfall streaming down from it that had caught my eye earlier: here’s a dim view of it. I love the spit of land in the foreground, too, with the hill and the single tree on top of it.

Dim view of waterfall with spit of land in foreground

Here’s a somewhat closer view of the waterfall: this was taken from the right side of the spit of land in the previous question. Notice also the dirt/grass block floating in midair: that’s the world’s fault, I didn’t put it there.

Closer view of waterfall, complete with floating dirt block

Here’s a look back at the spit of land (which turns out to have a second tree growing on the end). What I really like about this one, though, is the water to the right of the spit of land: it looks like ruins from a former city there underwater.

Underwater ruins next to the spit of land

Here are two more views of the waterfall; the sheep surveillance police are here as well, keeping tabs on me.

The waterfall really is majestic up close

Hello, sheep

Looking on, we have another spire, and a more substantial floating island; not sure where those floating islands are coming from, but I find them rather charming somehow.

Another spire further down, complete with floating island

Floating island, from below

Really, every picture at this point is beautiful. Here’s a view back at the waterfall spire:

Looking back at the waterfall spire

and two views of how the game generates trees, one a valley filled with trees and the other a single tree standing proudly alone.

A tree-filled valley

A single, proud tree

I turned around at this point, and headed back on the other side of the waterfall spire. I ran into a lake surrounded by mountains which, when I investigated, turned out to contain the first sugarcane that I’ve seen. (Which I grabbed the top parts of for farming purposes back home.)

A lake surrounded by mountains

Sugarcane!

I ran into a single square of water around here; Miranda encouraged me to pick it up to create a spring from, but for now I’ve left it alone.

A single square of water

Here’s a view of an expanse of water on the way back, dotted with tree islands:

Water with tree islands

And finally, I reached familiar territory. At this point, I was on the other side of my arch, near the ravine. I’d sort of forgotten that, when I initially exited that ravine, I climbed up a hill and built walkways to cross over to some nearby trees; but they’re still there, floating in midair.

These floating walkways were my fault

And here’s the back of my home arch, with the second and third floor windows visible.

The back of my home arch

A neat trip, with some lovely scenery: it makes me want to explore the area more but not actually build anything there, because I’m afraid that whatever I build would mar what is there now.