In May 2022, I visited Tilheyra, a Full region leveraging the private region land capacity bonus and designed by Teagan Lefevre as a means to showcase her TL Designs brand. It’s a place blogged about here – but that was spring 16 months ago; time has marched on, and those of us in the northern hemisphere are watching autumn stride towards us, and Second Life being what it is, Tilheyra has also marched forward.
I was recently made aware of this by Teagan herself, who invited me to re-visit the region and view its latest redressing. In particular, the estate has been extended with the additional of a Homestead region, which Teagan and her team have called Kuulua. It has been combined with Tilheyra to form a continuous landscape modelled after US swamplands.
Fall unfurls its colours in such splendour, we are but forced to take notice of it. Tilheyra, welcomes you to wade through the everglades, tour the swamps by foot or by boat, and taste the delicious flavours that autumn in the bayou brings.
– Tilheyra About Land
Given this description, and as one would expect, both of the regions present a low-lying landscape rich in trees and cut through with water as it forms natural channels and pools. Some of the latter are open, others increasingly choked by reeds and wetlands grasses, the greenery providing – if any were needed – perfect cover for local alligators as they prowl the shallows.
Sitting solidly towards the centre of this setting is a town. It is a place of indeterminate age; some of the buildings within it have the appearance of belonging to a grander setting whilst others – well, perhaps not so much; however all are showing signs of being past their prime. Roads, tracks and trails spread outward from the town, some of them crossing the water by means of bridges, all of variable designs and solidity – including one which started life as railway carriage! It a network of trails and paths which might be seen as a web spreading out through the swamplands, the town being the spider so often at the heart of a web; only rather than waiting for prey, the town awaits visitors to get caught in the unusual beauty of the landscape and itself.
During my May 2022 visit to Tilheyra I noted that while most of the region was open to the public, it also presented a number of rental properties. This is still the case with this latest iteration, with houseboats and cabins available for rent. All are clearly signed as private, so the risk of trespass should be minimised.
Those wanting to explore will find a lot to see, from places to eat to hangouts for passing the time – there’s even a corner memorial to pets that have passed on, tucked away in a corner. For the more adventurous, there’s a small dock on the shoreline of Kuulua, offering rowing boats and little Culprit speed boats for those who wish to explore the waterways.
Caught under the reds, greens and golds of autumn and framed by a sky in which both the Sun and the Moon might be found, the Tilheyra wetlands avoids the clichés often found within swamp-themed regions (such as an over-abundance of alligators or a “haunted” cabin or two), and instead presents an engaging and very natural setting, available for those seeking a home, and a destination for explorers and photographers.
My thanks to Teagan for the invite!
SLurl Details
- Tilheyra (rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 