Minecraft: Exploring East

After I finished mining on Sunday, I did go exploring as planned. I’d already headed north, south, and west, so that left going east as the obvious next step! First, the requisite departure pictures, looking east from inside the house, the roof, and through the gateway arch.

Looking east from inside the house

Looking east from the roof

Setting out through the gateway arch

Of course, I knew the first landmark on my journey east: that’s where the ravine is. Here’s one of the views down, as well as a view up into a bridge I built in the trees when I first exited the ravine.

Peering down into the ravine

Trees with stone bridge above the ravine

But I was in unfamiliar territory soon after that. It was quite charming, with a lovely little pool, and my first wolf sighting! Too bad I’m in peaceful mode and hence don’t have easy access to bones; hopefully I’ll find some in a dungeon eventually…

Pond a little further east

My first wolf sighting!

The first real landmark was a mountain: here’s a view of it barely visible in the distance, and a closer view.

Is that a mountain in the haze?

Approaching the mountain

As I got closer, it turned out to be impressively large and to come with a waterfall. And with steep sides: I managed to climb up part way, but eventually I dug a spiral staircase into the walls.

The waterfall at the base of the mountain

A view of the spiral stairs from ground level

The stairs up close

You could see a long way from the top: here are the views west (towards home) and east.

Looking back towards home from the mountain top

The view east

After that, I continued east. First, some tree pictures: a strange tree with mixed branches, a view of my inventory after chopping down my first birch tree, and a view of some trees high up whose branches extended out impressively far from the trunk. Do trees that you plant not grow that well, or have I just not been patient enough with my tree farm?

A tree with a strange mixture of leaves

Birch saplings and blocks

Looking up at a tree with spreading branches

And some non-tree scenery: a bay with pigs swimming in it, a watery cave, and a pool of lava right in the middle of the desert!

A pig swimming in the bay

Looking into a watery cave

A lava pool out in the open in the desert

Note the water in all of those pictures: in general, I ran into rather more water in this direction than in some of my recent journeys. And eventually, I hit some water that I couldn’t see across at all. At least not with the normal graphics settings: when I bumped it up to high, trees slowly popped into view. In retrospect, I’m actually kind of sad that I bumped it up to high, I kind of preferred the mystery…

Is there land across the ocean?

A couple of trees pop into view

More trees appear, with the moon behind them

That seemed like a good place to stop, so I turned around. I took a slightly different, more coastal route back, and didn’t take as many pictures. Here’s another tree with huge branches and a strange partial skybridge.

A tree with huge branches

A strange partial skybridge

I also ran into the only large cave on this journey: not nearly as impressive as the cave I’d run into on my western trip, but not bad.

Looking down into the cave

It's a pretty deep cave

I approached the lava sands area from the water side: here’s a view of the bay next to it and one of the lava sands at night. Incidentally, I brought a bed with me on this trip so I didn’t have to wait out the nights.

A spit of land in the bay next to the lava sands

The lava sands at night

And two final pictures: a rather impressive waterfall snaking down a sand mountain, and the beginnings of my birch tree farm!

Long waterfall flowing down from sand mountain

Starting a birch tree farm

That’s enough exploring for now, I think. Minecraft being what it is, there’s doubtless quite a lot more exploring to be done near my home base (in particular I’m planning to get to know the waterfall area a little better), but I don’t see any urgency in doing that. (Probably the eventual release of maps will give me a nudge in that direction.) Instead, I think I need to do some more domestic tasks: I want to set up an above ground house somewhere (trying to so so in a way that teaches me a bit more about Christopher Alexander), and I want to begin a rail system. The natural direction for rails would be south of my home base, so I’ll see if I can find a nice place to build across that desert.