Day 8 - Interesting Discoveries

I emerged from my bottom-of-a-pit hideaway and headed up the stairs, ignoring the spider sounds for now until I could get out and have a good look around.

Once out, I was greeted with the typical early morning view of a creeper heading in my vague direction (he's there, in the distance, if you look closely)...

...and of course the usual amphibious cow splashing about in the sea.

Oh well, no time to waste killing the creeper or admiring the aquatic antics of the cow, so I headed off on my standard daily quest, bouncing my way around the coastline, planting stone/torch combos and taking the odd snapshot for posterity. I passed a deep pit with an abandoned mine at the bottom, but the sun wasn't even halfway up yet so I ignored it and carried on.

Then, up ahead, I saw a landscape that looked very mountainous and exciting. I wondered if I would be passing that way soon? (Of course, a swimming cow had to go and get in the picture again...)

As I rounded a grassy bay and approached the mountains (passing yet more cows in the sea, is this a bug or do they have a real affinity for water in 1.8?) I realised I would not be walking through that area any time soon - I had already been there!

If you look closely at that screenshot, you can quite clearly see the stone blocks with torches on I use to mark my journey, not to mention a door and window in the base of the central mountain. Well, this was an interesting development anyway. All of the water to my left I had now proven to be surrounded by land, so it was looking likely that this was an enormous lake rather than a sea. Time will tell.

I followed the edge of the water around to the right and found myself on the edge of another desert, heading through a valley. I wondered if this would join up with the valley I found yesterday that looked very similar. It might have done, but I didn't make that discovery today - the water was bridged by a single piece of land that meant I had to turn around and head back up the other side.

I then discovered a small pumpkin patch and a couple of eggs, so I stocked up on both of those things - not because I needed them as such, but more because they're fairly rare so far and I don't have many yet.

And then, as the sun was getting lower and lower in the sky, I stumbled upon my first sight of a ravine.

Well, this just had to be my home for the night. I immediately set about chipping away some steps down to the ledge that ran around the cliff about halfway down, lighting my way as I went.

After walking around the entire ledge, placing torches to brighten the place up, I began my descent to the ravine floor.

Once there, I realised I had to stock up on coal, and there was a nice seam of it running through the cliff face right near me, so I scooped that up straight away. Doing so exposed a previously hidden abandoned mine.

Naturally, I jumped in and grabbed as much wood and string as I could find, ignoring the odd skeleton that lurked in the bottom of the pits in there.

My supplies replenished, I headed back into the ravine and noticed the sky was no longer dark; another day's walking was ahead of me and I had some climbing to do first...