Minecraft: Traveling South

Now that I’m done exploring the ravine, I decided to explore slightly further afield. I’d already gone north; when I bumped up the draw distance after getting the new computer, I saw some interesting scenery south from my spawn point, so I decided to go in that direction this time.

The view south from my home mountain

The view south from ground level, near the spawn point

Actually, I had another reason why I was curious: if I’m going to turn my home mountain into a train station, then the natural direction for the first line would be south, so I’d like to see what I’ll reach if I do that. When I stand on top of my home mountain, it looks like there’s ocean not very far in the distance, but I was hoping that’s an artifact of how the drawing algorithm handles distance rather than a sign of what’s actually happening with the terrain. And indeed, once I made it down from the mountain, I could already see terrain features that were in that blue area, so that guess seems to have been correct.

So, I walked south. Through desert initially, but I reached grass soon enough. (With a cute little cave tucked away.)

A cave hiding under the grass

And then mountains, built of both dirt and sand; I climbed up on the grassy side.

The mountains at the edge of the desert

Mountains with grass, trees, flowers

That wasn’t the last of the sand, though; here’s another big bowl of sand, and a view of the tree-covered valley (complete with odd overhang) next to it.

Bowl of sand, with water and trees on edge

Tree-covered valley next to sand

Closer view of that odd overhang

I can’t remember how densely I took photographs; the next one after that is what I assume is a lake. (I don’t know if that’s an island in the distance or the shore jutting out.) I also ran into a lovely little meadow dotted with red flowers.

Lake ringed by beaches and trees

Meadow with red flowers

Eventually, I ran into my first region of snow. And not too far beyond that, a large body of water; I don’t know if it’s the ocean or not, but if it’s a lake, it’s a big one.

My first snow

Is this ocean?

At that point, I turned back: I wasn’t planning to go on a huge expedition, I just wanted to get a sense for what the terrain was like to the south. And the answer was: interesting and pleasantly varied, I’d certainly be happy to expand further in that direction.

But first some mining, I think: I need more iron. And I should explore east and west as well: I’ve gone some amount east underground, but I should go farther aboveground. It looks like I’ll hit ocean fairly soon if I go west, but I could be wrong about that.