Day 26 - Success!

This morning the theme seemed to be swimming zombies.

First this guy came at me, jumping through the water to keep cool. Once he was dealt with, a friend of his thought he'd have a go too, but luckily the cows were on my side today and one of them held the zombie at bay while I got my weapons in order.

My walk today took me down another river, to a point very near to a previous day's trek. There were only a few blocks of dirt between then and now.

By this point I had travelled along so many rivers that I couldn't recall if the marker on the other side was from yesterday or a week ago. I turned around and returned in the opposite direction. Soon the land was becoming much flatter and the trees taller.

I passed a tree growing in a pit.

Then I saw more mountains ahead. Would I actually get to walk amongst them this time? Or would I, as seems to be the case more often, curve away before I arrive? As I continued on towards them, I passed a very narrow ravine sliced into the ground.

At the far end of the ravine, the water was pouring from the sea/lake beside me down into the depths, yet it never seemed to fill up. Physics is not what you're used to around here. Not far past this point, I snapped a picture of a pig on a ledge.

And then the sun was getting lower in the sky and I was entering swampland again. I could see a mountain through the trees ahead.

And then I saw it. On a small raised area of dirt in the middle of my view there was a workbench. This all suddenly seemed very familiar. It was where I had begun my journey - I was back! Indeed, I put down my last couple of markers and around the very next corner were the two markers I had placed way back in the beginning.

It seemed fitting that the sun should be setting at the completion of my voyage. I remembered that I had dug my first night's home into the side of the mountain, so I hurried over there before it got too dark and was greeted by the welcoming sight of a ready-prepared place to spend the night.

I went in, offloaded most of my prized treasures into the chest there and wondered what to do now.

Well I still hadn't actually answered my original question - was I on an island or had I been traversing the shores of a large enclosed body of water? As I had been keeping the water on my left-hand side, if I had made more left turns than right then this was a big lake. If however I had turned right more then I was on an island. But for some strange reason I hadn't been keeping track of which way I turned so I was none the wiser.

I decided I needed to make a map. A Minecraft map. Which required paper and a compass. And to make a compass I needed redstone - which was only found in the depths of the world. I decided to dig down.

I got pretty deep but found nothing, and daylight was arriving outside, so I returned to the surface and considered my options.