Month: July 2020

I’m totally up to my ears in a variety of things at the moment, which has had something of an impact on my ability to blog with the usual frequency. Hopefully, I’ll be all caught up over the next couple of days, but I didn’t want to mission the opportunity to write a few words about Swan, the Homestead region held by Keely Mistwood as her personal space, but which she has opened to the public to visit.

The landscaping for the region is by Tab Tatham, whose design work is always worth seeing as she has an considered eye for creating natural environments – as can instantly be seen with Swan.

The region is largely given over to a mountainous off-sim surround that joins with the island to present a low-lying tongue of land extending out into the waters of a bay, several other peaked islands rising from the waters to suggest a coastal archipelago, while the the trees of the lowlands suggest this is somewhere in the northern latitudes.

Rocky in nature and split by a stream that issues from one of the landscape’s rocky faces, the landscape is rich in fir and oak and climbs back to a high table close to the mountain backdrop, a finger of rock connecting the two, a screen of trees helping to curtain the join between region landscape and surround.

This high bluff has prevented the sea complete separating the headland from the mountain, and thus turning it into an island. To one side is a channel that has eaten its way between headland and mountains; on the other is a sheltered arc of beach reached by wooden steps that descend from the flat top of the rock and watched over by a wooden deck.

The top of the plateau is largely given over to Keely’s house, which like the rest of the region, is open to the public. It has a delightfully bohemian feel to it, the indoor spaces open and breezy, seamlessly with the decks around it, and a cool looking rocky pool alongside in place of a more traditional swimming pool.

Packed with detail, the house looks down on a further curved bay, this one with shingle rather than sand, this one arcing to another, lower table of rock, home to a more traditional swimming pool. It can be reached via the wooden steps leading up to the house from the landing point or via one of two zip lines.

The second zip line descends to the north-east and the tip of the headline, where an old cabin, now converted into a hidden summer house – although be warned that the trip down the line will take you through the local fir trees, so you could end up getting a few slaps from the boughs!

Between the cabin / summer house and the landing point, the land is again rich in detail beneath the canopy of trees. Here might be found an open-air theatre, old terraces, open walks, decks and more, all making for a richly photogenic setting – although you’ll need you own pose HUD for avatar photography, as Keely hasn’t opened rezzing the region to avoid littering.

Superbly made, packed with opportunities to wander and / or relax (including the little island off-shore, although you’ll have to fly to it), Swan is a perfect destination for the SL traveller. I’m not sure if Keely intends to keep it open to visitors or if it may be a limited time opportunity to make a visit;  so if you’re interested, hopping over sooner rather than later might be the way to avoid disappointment.

SLurl Details

• Swan (rated: Moderate)

Dim Sum Gardens is a Full region on the Mainland that has been given over to a quite spectacular oriental themed public garden space that can be deceptive in its breadth and depth. Designed by Wee Willian Wylie, the gardens are built around a large lake, and are rich in features and details that can make any visit a voyage of discovery – although that said, it would be remiss of me not to note that such is the depth of detail within the gardens, a visit can take a lot out of older systems; so if you do tend to travel with a high draw distances or shadows always enabled, be prepared to make adjustments so that you might better enjoy things.

A visit commences on the south side of the gardens within a Japanese-style walled terrace area. Here, on a platform guarded by Japanese hunter / warriors and sinuous water dragons, sitting over a rectangular pool water and beneath a stylishly modern Torii gate, the landing point looks out across the lake as it spreads itself to the north, water falling from a low lip in the edge of the pool to add to the lake’s fill.

This is a place where the term here be dragons has genuine meaning: as well as the two water dragons busily keeping the pool under the landing point topped-up, dragon heads decorate a stone fountain on the terrace below, and two more are waiting to greet visitors as they descend the steps from the terrace to join the path that offer routes of exploration along the south side of the gardens. In addition, all of this  – landing point, terrace and all – is watched over by a large water dragon that raises its head out of the lake to also examine arriving visitors.

Bracketed by trees and woods to the south, west and east, the lake reaches north to where the land rises in grass-topped bluffs that arc around the back of a large island that proudly rises from the waters, a couple of smaller, low-lying islands between it and the landing point to the south. This sheer-faced island is topped by a quite marvellous Japanese tea house that mixes modern and traditional design in a manner that delights the eye. Like the landing point, this tea house is also guarded by dragons as it sits over a water feature that is home to fountains and Japanese crane, whilst waters tumble from the rocks of its perch to also add to the lake below.

The tea house is just one of many buildings and structures to be found throughout the gardens, some of which may be easy to spot as they raise their roofs above screens of trees or sit out over the waters whilst others may only come into view as you wander, and some attempt to remain hidden right up until you are almost literally on top of them.

Most of the larger structures are distinctly oriental in design, although a further café, sitting on the north shore of the lake and tucked behind the bulk of the island tea house, is of western design, and several of the smaller hideaways and romantic spots could hail from anywhere around the globe, whilst a dance pavilion on an island tucked into the south-east of the lake carries an elven air about it.

But no matter what their heritage, the placement of all the structures, large and small, within these gardens means that they all simply work and come together with the landscaping to capture the eye and heart.

To get to all of them really is an exercise in exploration: whilst a trail runs east and west from the path leading outward from the landing point terrace, it quickly becomes sporadic and overgrown or broken, although in places fences and old wall may offer hints of where to go. This allows things like bridges out to islands or the rediscovery of the trail after losing it in long grass and wild flowers, to add to the sense of adventure – as can coming across the unexpected, near-unseen house and courtyard or Japanese pavilion hiding within a curtain of bamboo.

For those who tire of wandering – something hard to imagine here – or who simply want to sit and relax, Dim Sum Gardens again offers a lot, from simple benches in the shade of trees, to the aforementioned cafés and tea houses, to the many pavilions and picnic spots and decks built out over the water and rafts floating upon it.

Nor is the lake home to a lone dragon; ducks swim among the lily pads, puffins perch on rocks, and heron and pelicans keep an eye out for unwary fish that might stray too close to where they stand. rowing boats and lanterns also sit on the waters, whilst several pieces of art rise above the rippled surface. This is a place rich in the colours of nature: multiple hues of green from grass, flowers and trees, reds and pinks and whites of cherry trees, and where the reds and greys and browns of rooftops add their bursts of colour to the mix.

With something new to see wherever you look and surprises to be found wherever you wander, Dim Sum is a perfect setting (if, again being honest, a possible heavy load for some systems). Such is its design, more than one look might be required to find everything – as I found out when I returned to take photos and came across the orangery with its piano inside, so well hidden under the boughs of a cherry tree I’d completely missed during my first visit!

SLurl Details

• Dim Sum Gardens (Malrif, rated General)