Gale Storm Retreat – click any image for full size
Gale Storm Retreat is a Homestead region designed by Chania Leuce (CheekiChica). It adjoins the full region of Aphrodisia, home to Chania’s store and which, at the time of writing, is listed as “under construction. The landing point sits at the northern end of Gale Storm Retreat, serving both regions; a gated path leads up to Aphrodisia, while wooden signs point the way to the more open areas of Gale Storm Retreat.
As the descriptions for the region found in the Destination Guide and in About Land state, this is a remote location, modelled after the US Pacific North-west, where a storm is brewing just off the coast. In fact, the rain has already made landfall – so you might want a brolly and raincoat when visiting!
Follow the signs east and south from the landing point, and you’ll pass under a great stone arch, watched over by a wooden windmill, and you’ll find yourself on a high plateau which quickly drops away to the south and west to a sandy coast, where the tide appears to be on the rise. To the east, the land falls sharply away as cliffs, their edge guarded by rocky walls and slender fences.
Walk beneath the line of these eastern rocky walls- avoiding a slim finger pointing inland – and you’ll find your way southward past a large stone patio with pool and tiled roof, the latter protecting a fire offering warmth and respite from the rain, and down to a rocky headland where the revolving eye of a lighthouse watches over land and sea.
Below the lighthouse lay the beach and sandbars of the coast, straddled in part by wooden houses raised on stout wooden piles to avoid the ravages of a returning tide. Huts and tents sit further in from the sea, huddled on the sands above the high tide mark, but still looking vulnerable as rain lashes down and lightening forks and flashes its way across the sky.
Further to the west and north, above the lie of the beach, but lower than the main plateau, sits a grassy bluff, home to a stone and wood cottage with smoke rising invitingly from its tall chimney, suggesting another place where shelter from the rain can be found. The cottage sits close to another line of cliffs to the north and which march back eastwards, part of the divide between the coast and the town on the neighbouring region. And old shipping container, converted into a hideaway, sits within the shadow of the cliffs, watched over by the weeping willows lining their narrow tops.
This is an atmospheric region, designed for photography and which lovers of the sea and the rain will enjoy. There are plenty of places scattered across the landscape for couple to enjoy, indoors and out – including in at least one of the tree houses. A group joining fee of L$500 secures rezzing rights and the ability to claim the pose gifts on offer at the landing point. Chania also notes that it is a work-in-progress (as with the region to the north), so don’t be surprised if details have changed between reading this description and any visit you make.
And about that region to the north? Well, it may be the subject of a future article, once Chania and her friends have had the opportunity to finish building it. Time will tell on that!
SLurl Details
- Gale Storm Retreat (Aphrodisia Isle, rated: Adult)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 