Borkum’s easy beauty in Second life

Yoyo Collas is back with a new Homestead region design for people to enjoy. Called Borkum, this is an easy place to visit and well suited for helping those of us in the northern hemisphere get ready for the coming of spring and summer and the inevitable thoughts of getting away from it all.

Borkum is a photogenic Island . A great place with many hideaways…time for feelings…dancing…time for two…lonely beaches all by yourself listening to music or enjoying the awesome people and views.

– Borkum About Land description

This is an easy-on-the-eye place to visit – as is the case with all Yoyo’s designs – offering an entirely natural setting in the form of a sunny island, largely given over to a sandy beach and grassy spine rising from south-west to cliff-edged north-east. The landing point sits to the east side of the island’s hilly back, the beach sweeping around it from east through south to west, the grassland rising gently up towards a little gathering of buildings towards the northern end of the island, the grass hiding a spread of lavender and yellow flowers which are the focus of the local sheep.

The buildings on the island suggest that this might have once been a place for processing fish prior to moving them on the mainland for sale. On the west side, sitting at the southern end of the cliffs, is a former industrial building, now converted into a comfortable apartment-style house, its cosy interior mixing with its slightly run-down exterior offering an attractive personification of shabby-chic, whilst facing a small shed or out-house across the lavender and yellow flowers.

This outhouse also appears to have undergone a transformation from what might have once been a storehouse to an artist’s retreat, a deck extending from its east side to overlook and overhang the run of the beach as it reaches the start of the cliffs. Further evidence that this might have been a working location sits below the warehouse-converted-to-a-home, where a small wharf has a trawler tied-up alongside.

Beyond the house, the grassland levels into a table of land pointing the way towards the candle-like white lighthouse with its bright red top. The land here forms something of a meadow where horses – a common and welcome element in Yoyo’s designs – are grazing peacefully, a fence along one side of the hilltop preventing them from going down into the shallow valley and upsetting the sheep (or vice-versa!).

Scattered across the island are many places where people can escape and relax – in the house, along the beach, out in the shallows just beyond the sand, among the horses as they graze or at the foot of the cliffs and so on. There’s also a kiteboarding rezzer located on one side of the islands beaches, but I confess that when I tried, the boards I rezzed refused to respond to my keyboard inputs; you might have better luck on your visit. Further around the shore from the rezzer is a little boat where those who wish can also try a little bit of fishing.

Peaceful and finished with an easy soundscape and with a local EEP which gives it the feel of a tranquil watercolour painting, Borkum is a delightful visit.

SLurl Details

• Borkum (Golden Place, rated Moderate)