Category: Second Life

A recent entry into the Destination Guide was for a mainland location called The Forest of Hours, described as a newcomer-friendly setting with a lot to see and enjoy. It immediately caught my eye, with the description drawing me in even further through its mention of Cael Ystafell, a place I know to be held by Kinn (Kinnaird Mainlander) and her Second Life partner, Ziki Questi, two people with whom I’ve been acquainted for a long time (Ziki being a former Second Life arts blogger I’ve greatly admired for her work promoting the arts in SL, and who is a massively accomplished photographer as well). As such, I was keen to hop over and spend a number of visits exploring.

To describe The Forest of Hours without including Cael Ystafell would be somewhat akin to a visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower; both are completely intertwined and open to visitors and genuinely include a lot to see and discover, with portals and other surprises waiting to be found by wanderers. Both have been landscaped by Kinn, with Nix Onyx working on the core of The Forest of Hours alongside Kinn.

Kinn, Nix and Ziki describe the combined landscape thus:

It was our goal to create a space to show the possibilities of beauty on the Mainland … our joyful attempt at “reforesting” the Mainland on the Northwestern shore of the Heterocera Atoll. The Forest of Hours blends into Cael Ystafell … to the West, creating an unbroken treeline from Route 4 in Scape through Route 2 in Echo. Please feel free to explore all of the nooks and crannies and fun spaces tucked into the forest.

The Landing Point for The Forest of Hours lies at the side of Route 4 in the region of Scape and just inside the forest’s edge, close to a stone arch bearing the forest’s name. From here, the path winds into the mist-bound land, winding between trees through which rays of sunlight slant;  the tree trunks and mist work together to give a sense of mystery to wandering, concealing at they do what might be found, so that places of interest hide among the shadows, emerging from the mist in greeting as they are approached.

The first major location to so reveal itself is that of a once extensive structure built of carefully cut stone, the walls now broken and in places entirely absent, any roofing that may have once covered the shells of rooms now long vanished, the stone flagged floors and worn steps slowing giving way to the returning grass and moss of the forest. Within these remnants can be found a charming café, an open-air set for live music and dancing, places to sit (outdoors and in –  the latter courtesy of the House of Variants tucked into one corner) and even a magic potion brewer!

Where one goes from here is a matter of choice – paths wind onwards from the ruins, passing from them by means of arched doorways. Perhaps the most prominent of these, given it is signposted, is the one pointing towards Cael Ystafell – but don’t be in too much of a hurry to follow it; taking the path under the other arch away from the ruins offers its own mysteries, both above ground and under it.

Reached most obviously via a cave entrance sitting close to the path winding up the southern uplands to the forest, the landscape has hidden beneath it a network of tunnels and caves of a kind that just as you think you’ve found everything they contain, reveal something else within a waiting chamber. Meanwhile, the path up over this underground labyrinth offers its own many paths of exploration and places to discover, with camp fire meeting places, Japanese-themed elements and paths, meandering streams and tumbling waterfalls, and further routes pointing towards Cael Ystafell.

Along the way there are wonderful touches of detail to be found, from foxes and birds and more extraordinary creatures alongside trails and in the trees, to elements of 3D art carefully placed to surprise when encountered, together with multiple places indoors and out in which to spend time. The latter range from an artist’s studio hidden among the woods to a glamping tent with cosy bed and a Japanese tea house through to what appears to be (from the outside at least!) a witch’s cottage – and more besides, with the more outdoor places to sit equally as richly varied.

Also waiting discovery are a number of portals and references to other locations held by Ziki and Kinn. I’m not going to spoil things by saying where to find them, but do keep an eye out for the following:

• A doorway to Bay City, the community in which Ziki and Kinn are very active.
• A portal to The Far Away, a location originally created by AM Radio, and now in Ziki and Kinn’s guardianship (and which I wrote about way back in 2013!)
• A magic mirror that will lift you to Club Echo, a new venue where (I understand from Ziki) social and other events may be held in the future.
• Other portals and places – such as the underground New York apartment.

While exploring, visitors might also come across little references to things like Lucy van Pelt from Peanuts, a touch of Tolkien in the greeting over a doorway and what might be a further homage to AM Radio and his work, in the form of a radio studio and tower within Cael Ystafell, to name but three.

The Forest of Hours and Cael Ystafell are wonderfully landscaped and make for a relaxing and engaging exploration with a lot of discover and appreciate. Whilst naturally under a misty environmental setting, the locations are ideally suited to many ambient environments – as I hope some of the images here demonstrate.  Do be sure to visit.

SLurl Details

• The Forest of Hours (Scape, rated Moderate)
• Cael Ystafell (Echo, rated Moderate)

Maison de L’amitie (home/house/companion of friendship) is a Homestead region held by Corina Wonder I’ve been prone to dropping into on an irregular basis over the last several years. Throughout most of those visits, the region’s design has been the work of Corina herself, and has always presented photogenic setting, sometimes inspired by physical world locations (such as her 20219 recreation Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, which I covered here).

However, in dropping in to it at the start of March 2025, I was interested to note that while Corina still holds the region, the setting it presented is the work of LuaneMeo (holder and co-creator of Luane’s World, an oft-featured setting in these pages) and her frequent region design partner, Gorba McMahon. However, given the time since my last visit, I’m not sure if this is a new arrangement or one that has been going on for a while; not that it i important – the region remains as engaging as it every has been.

With spring starting to make its presence felt in many parts of the northern hemisphere, Maison de L’amitie presents a setting in keeping with the season – and one potential suitable for summer as well. The landscape is split into three: a large, main island and two smaller off-shoots looking as if they might have once been connected to one another and the main island, but which now sit just of the coast, low grassy / sandy humps just peeping above the waves enough to entice people to visit.

And visit they can; along the beach of the southern coast of the main island are a couple of wooden decks extending out over the blue waters (one so low in fact that it looks like its might be considering going for a swim!).

The larger of the two decks offers a little wooden boat with outboard motor to putter across the bay to either of the little islands, whilst the smaller of the two has an inflatable boat rezzer disguised as a life ring. Copies of the latter can be found on both of the smaller islands, thus allowing visitors to make their way back to the larger after explorations of the little isles has left them sans their original transport.

These two smaller islands are very individual in their looks. One is little more than a sandbar valiantly fighting the erosion of time and tide as they slowly but inevitably lays claim to its sands. An old adobe walled shack sits on the back of the island, now converted into a surfing shack and carrying various nautical-theme decorations within itself, a surfboard / paddle board propped again an outside wall together with a couple of paddles – the latter presumably waiting for someone to grab one of them and use with the board, the waters perhaps being far too peaceful for any actual surfing.

The second of these smaller islands is a little more substantial, a good portion of it formed by a grassy-haired table of flat rock sitting with an crescent of sand around one side. Trees have gathered around the remnants of a building here which, from the main island, might have the appearance of an old chapel long ago fallen into disuse and collapse. Within its shell someone  has built a little lean-to as a shelter and both it and the chapel-like window opening high on the wall offer places to sit.

The main island sits much higher above the water and is almost completely hemmed by a ribbon of beach running around its edge, the sands flattening and flaring out at the island’s southern extent to form a beachy promontory, its southern tip curling slightly towards the sandbar and  its shack, as if trying to reconnect to them.

It’s fairly clear from the compressed and sedimented layers of the exposed sandstone behind the southern arc of the beach, that this island has faced its share of inclement weather down the years sufficient enough to leave its mark in the exposed rock. However, this has not prevented the island becoming an attractive home and place for tourists to appreciate; the gentle rise and curl of its grass-covered back is home to a rich variety of trees and, around them, the vibrant colours of flowers in full bloom. This flowers seem to ebb and flow across the island’s middle saddle as it separates a large and beflowered stone house on the western uplands from the Tuscan-style villa to the east, the latter perfectly sited to look out over the beach’s broad headland.

The villa forms both the region’s Landing Point and a little café with both an outdoor terrace and upper balcony / rooftop seating area. The house across the island, meanwhile, offers a cosy, furnished retreat in which friendly conversation can be had in the conservatory or a game of backgammon enjoyed in the lounge, while upstairs a photographer’s studio awaits the return of its owner.

It is on the main island that the rich detail – evident throughout the setting – really comes into its own, Luane and Gorba having worked hard to imbue the island with a rich sense of life with details large and small. Signs of human habitation can be found all around the beach, as well as at the house and café (and the latter’s nearby neighbour); there are multiple places to sit and pass the time from deck chairs under parasols to lounger behind windbreaks to a touch of Californian surfin’ sixties, courtesy of an old VW camper offering a little beach-top surf retreat with a waiting picnic (and not the only picnic spot awaiting discovery at that!). Further around the sands to the north sits a tuk-tuk van both continuing the surf theme and offering a cosy retreat of its own.

Up on the island’s back, meanwhile, sheep peacefully graze, birds sing and pose on boughs as if awaiting their close-ups, butterflies add their own splashes of colour among the flowers, while swings, hammocks and canopied loungers offer places to set and contemplate the view and the setting. Overhead, an eagle circles on the updraughts created by the passage of wind up and over the island’s spine, aloof from the cawing and crying of the gulls over and on the beach.

Visually appealing, rich in colour, details and ambient sounds, Maison de L’amitie remains a thoroughly engaging visit.

SLurl Details

• Maison de L’amitie (Dekade, rated Moderate)