Category: Exploring Second Life

A whimsical café & library built on its own serene lake with lots of areas to explore and relax. The library is stocked with short stories for readers to get lost in. Bring your friends and family or come alone and enjoy a meal, relax with a warm drink, read some books, or just lounge around and take in the scenery. It is all ages and newcomer-friendly!

Having read these words via the Destination Guide, it was back on one of my café hopping expeditions in Second Life for me as I set out to visit the Woodland Café and Library, the work of Sienna Skye (Sienna Foxdale). And as I quickly discovered on arrival, they offer just a hint of what this thoroughly relaxing setting has to offer visitors.

Nestled within the enfolding arms of the Briarwood residential estate, Woodland Café occupies its own Homestead region, and is largely separated from the rest of the estate by the surrounding lake, thus eliminating the risk of accidental incursion into someone’s house or garden. The one route into the estate on foot is presented by two bridges passing by way of one of the small islands sharing the waters close to the café island, making it possible for the local residents pop in.

Those teleporting to the Woodland Café will find themselves delivered to the island on which it stands, arriving roughly equidistant from one of the bridges leading back to the estate, a stone-and-wood pavilion (one of Cory Edo’s always excellent designs) and the path leading up to the café itself. Like me, Sienna  appears to have a fondness for Cory’s designs, as the café is another design from Trompe Loeil, whilst another of the little islands sitting alongside the café is home to Cory’s Jetje vintage caravan.

This little islet can reached via stepping stones spanning the short neck of water between it and the café’s island; just follow the shingle cover shoreline as it curve around the side of the stone pavilion to find it. Warmed by a log fire and lit by lanterns and strings of light, the pavilion presents a comfortable retreat in which to relax or join friends (and strangers!) in quiet conversation whilst partaking of the refreshments offered on the tea trolley.

For those seeking a little more entertainment, a gravel path branches from the foot of the route up to the café proper. Skirting between the flat-topped mushroom of rock on which the café sits and the raised location of the pavilion, to provide access to a wooden deck where people can engage in Greedy Greedy, again warmed by a wood-burning fire and with refreshments taking the form of an espresso machine and frosted cupcakes.

Once up on the rocky “mushroom”, visitors have a choice of taking the wooden steps leading to the café’s balcony and outside seating, or scrambling up a rocky lip to a wild garden area where someone appears to be cultivating mushrooms. Sadly, no places to sit are on offer in the garden, which is a bit of a shame as a blanket and some nibbles to enjoy would make it a nice little place for relaxing as well.

Fortunately, the café makes up for this by offering plenty of places to sit and relax or browse the web (sort-of! 🙂 ). Downstairs the counter with its temptations of drinks and waist-expanding goodies is imaginatively set is if in a woodland glade, the tables and chairs before equally set upon grass-like rugs to enhance the glade-like atmosphere. Mushrooms can also be found here, although there are far more decorative and functional / playful in nature, and Tiny visitors might well appreciate the mushroom fort with its cushions and opportunity to avoid being trodden on by oversized, clodhopping humans!

The upper floor reveals why the café is also a library: interactive bookcases line two walls. When touched these will offer a menu of books, plays and short stories by the likes of Shakespeare, the Brother Grimm, and other available to read on the web, although here they take note card form and the selection is apparently updated weekly (note that these can also be obtained from the bookcase tree trunk outside of the pavilion). The seating on the upper floor is also set out so as to suggest or invite discussions or perhaps a reading circle.

People who desire a little more solitude are also catered for within the setting; a little rowing boat with mixed singles and couples poses is anchored in the lee of the islands, whilst the route towards the rest of the estate passes by a shaded hanging chair overlooking the little model boats sailing on the nearby pond. There is also the tiny island mentioned above, with its caravan and outdoor seating, whilst another rowing boat has been turned into a cosy sofa for those who are willing to seek out its semi-hidden location.

To call this setting delightful would be an understatement; there is a natural blending of charm and nature (including local wildlife) throughout which is thoroughly engaging and photogenic throughout and well worth a visit.

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• Woodland Café and Library (Mistwood forest, rated Moderate)

There are many beautiful regions in Second Life presenting all manner of settings and environments and put together with care and love for the enjoyment and appreciate those who visit them. It has been my privilege and joy to visit many of them over the years, and to write about them. Some have faded away with the passage of time, but remain in photos and memory; others are reinvented periodically to offer something new and enchanting or mysterious or fun to visit, and some – and their designers – have become established in a growing catalogue of places I regard as personal favourites; places I will happily revisit time and again.

One such region was that of Winter Moon, a place I visited on several occasions between 2013 and 2020 and wrote about on three of them. A Homestead region held and designed by Dream Shadowcry, it was always a place of serene beauty and opportunities to decompress and renew. However, and for reasons unclear to me – or perhaps because the region was retired at some point; I genuinely have no idea – I lost track of Winter Moon in late 2020; so when a little bird whispered in my ear that Dream was back with a new setting (and with a new name for herself – Dream Softpaw), this time occupying a Full region, I knew I’d have to play a little catch-up.

Oblivion – for that is the name of the setting – offers all that I found so attractive in Winter Moon, but with a richness of detail which can only come within a Full region’s additional Land Capacity. A veritable tour de force of design, it is – without hyperbole – simply magnificent in presenting a place that is rich in celebrating nature’s beauty; a veritable tapestry of ideas and themes deftly woven together into an engaging whole.

The “official” landing point (not actually enforced, so people can teleport out and back in anywhere within the region) sits at the southern end of a suspension bridge which appears to have been modelled after Liberty Bridge connecting Buda and Pest across the Danube. However, rather than spanning a river, here the bridge links a large sandbar occupying the south-east portion of the region with the main landmass. Also unlike its namesake, this bridge has only one suspension span, and is not a walkway in the traditional sense; rather, it is a garden space reaching out over the water to the rocky northern tip of the sandbar, where it drops down by way of steps to ain unsurfaced path leading to a grove of fir trees crowning the highest point above the surrounding sands.

As well as suggesting the region enjoys a temperature rather than tropical climate, the trees lay gathered around and on the sandy hill in a manner which suggests the surrounding beaches – despite the deckchair and parasol placed close to the current water’s edge – might well be subject to periodic submergence by the tide; a suggestion additionally made by the fact the sandbar’s lone wooden deck extends out over the sands whilst raised well above them on stout timbers.

Both ends of the bridge are marked by boxwood hedge arches, with the northern end also having steps descending from it to a small headland of sand dunes matted by wild grasses, together with a beach where a large deck has been constructed, complete with a walled garden area and upon which comfortable chairs, braziers and parasols have been set out to allow visitors to relax and enjoy a cocktail or glass of wine, together with selections of fresh fruits, – just don’t sit on the furry occupants of one of the chaise lounge!

Westward, and beyond another boxwood arch, the path climbs the slopes of the main island, meandering through and between grasses, ferns and wildflowers and beneath the tall fingers of high fir trees and redwoods as they form a not-too-dense woodland. Branching mid-climb, a part of the path wriggles its way to stone steps as they  slip down to a further deck, this one raised over the rocks and cliffs sitting at the landward end of the setting’s sheltered bay. Meanwhile, the rest of the trail continues upwards to run along the spine of the island, skirting the edge of a wash of lavender as it adds a splash of deep colour to the greens and browns – and even the pinks and reds of the blossoming trees sitting amongst the fir trees.

Bursting clear of the trees, the path provides access to a huge glass-and-iron greenhouse, now converted into a chandelier-hung bar, a further place to sit and relax. Beyond it, on the high headland, an eye-catching floating stage reached by wooden steps and held aloft by three large balloons as it overlooks and small and slightly overgrown dance floor to outside and the cliffs that drop away to a further beach on the other. The latter is marked by a massive rock arch which itself sits close to a final sentinel at this end of the island: a stone pavilion raised at the end of a slender finger of sand – although how you reach it is a matter for you to determine 😉 .

Across the endite setting are hints of fantasy and romance gently woven into the setting to add to its beauty: a gentle voice might in places be heard singing on the breeze; an empty mausoleum has been converted to a quiet retreat; the beacon-like braziers point blades of light towards the sky; an armchair surrounded by (mostly!) quiet cattle content to simply observer whoever uses it, awaits those in a contemplative mood; a clockwork owl keeps a careful pair of eyes on the comings and goings of visitors…

Oblivion is without a doubt one of the most visually engaging, soul warming settings it has been my pleasure to explore; the depths of detail Dream has provided are wonderful to find – hence why in some cases above I’ve given hints, not directions, on what you might witness! – and the sheer natural flow form location to location is utterly sublime, while the many places to sit and share or rest in solitude further add to region’s welcome – and increase the desire to spend time within it.

Simply outstanding.

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• Oblivion (Avalon Shores, rated Moderate)

It was off to Grauland for me for my first of 2024 trips to Jim Garand’s always photogenic region, which also serves at the home for his M1 Poses store (tucked neatly out of the way in the sky). The last time I visited, the region was home to a setting featuring ancient stone ruins awaiting exploration, set with a somewhat tropical environment; it’s a theme which-sort of continues with the iterated I visited in January – albeit featuring ruins of a very different kind.

For this setting Grauland presents an almost flat island; whether temperate, tropical or sub-tropical is hard to say at first glance, although there are clues to suggest the former is likely the case, rather than the latter two, and on which stand the remnants of what may have been a sizeable industrial operation.

Quite what that endeavour might have been is open to to imaginative interpretation; to one side of the island, old pumpjacks stand in a field of wild grass, the “nodding donkey” head of one still rising and falling as the little group comes close to resembling a drove of their four-legged namesakes grazing quietly. They suggest that oil might have been a focus of efforts here; however, two of the surviving structures suggest something else to have been the mainstay of work here.

To the west of the island, and partially build on blocky concrete stilts over the water, stands a massive elevator / silo building with eight massive silos forming two column- like rows supporting the high roof built over the great hall between them – a hall now oddly home to a grove of trees which reach from main doors to the iron stairways climbing the far wall to provide access to the upper levels of the building as they stand out over the watery shallows. An outer wall of these levels, complete with their glassless windows staring across the island and out to sea, proclaims the building to belong to Black Stripe Grain, Inc., although it is a little hard to imagine the eight massive silos being home to mere grain – so might the building’s labelling by a cunning disguise? As I said, this is a place open to imaginative interpretation!

A short distance from this huge elevator with its silos stands a hopper for loading bulk goods onto railcars. Again, its looks suggest it was used for something other than grain, but such has been the passage of time here, who can really tell? And it is clear that a fair amount of time has passed here.

The rail line that once proceeded out from the hopper and – one assumes – over a low-lying trellis across the waters to – well, somewhere – now lies rusting and broken. With rails no longer carried over the water but instead sloping down into it, the line is blocked by derailed boxcars and a rusting carriage which might once have carried a workforce to and from this place.

Contrasting the sense of human desertion present across most the island, the east side of the complex remains relatively intact, with concrete wharves still in good working order and offering berths to a large boat – perhaps a trawler pressed into other duties – which appears to be in good working order, and a smaller cabin cruiser to which time has been less kind.

But again, while the wharves remain relatively pristine compared to the rest of the island thus far described, the same cannot be said of the warehouse / factory built alongside them. With one side either collapsed or ripped open, it is in a sorry state, now apparently the haunt of graffiti artists visiting the island, whilst the intact section its upper floor reveal it to have once been a literal body shop or sorts, the sad remains of its produce scattered on decaying pallets, sitting in aging crates or hanging from rusting irons.

Elsewhere there is yet more evidence of past use and hints that further buildings once stood here whilst the workers at least enjoyed some amenities. For example a single, lonely bus sits out on the dirt, its paintwork slowly fading in the sunlight or being slowly corroded by rust. It’s presence suggests it once spared workers the drudgery of walking too and from the rail carriage(s) which may have once brought them here.

But civilisation has not entirely deserted this place. As noted above, the old factory has obviously has the attention of street artists, whilst between the towering “granary” and the factory sits a concrete-side tank. although it might be surrounded by iron railings which may have once suggested it to be a place of potential harm and has machinery alongside it which dips the snout of a pipe into it, the waters within it are clear and blue enough to encourage whoever visits to turn it into an outdoor swimming pool, regardless of its former use. Several places to sit have also been established around the island, further suggesting it receives frequent visitors, something backed-up by the RHIB drawn on up one shore, a picnic basket and blanket close by.

Desolate yet remaining strong hints of life, carrying a sense of mystery among its deserted buildings, this iteration of Grauland has much to say about itself whilst at the same time holding back enough of its history to set the imagination wandering as much as feet might wander through its structures and open spaces.

SLurl Details

• Grauland (Liberia Isle, rated Adult)

Occupying a Full private region leveraging the available Land Capacity bonus, Timeless Seasons is a location designed by videographer Suzie Anderton as a place where visitors can – to quote the Destination Guide entry:

Experience the magic … and revel in wonders as you descend its hills. Gather loved ones for a journey through this kingdom uncovering cuddle spots, event venues, portals to the unknown, and a cavern system. Welcome to a realm where seasons unfold timeless experiences for you and your family.

All of which is a heady promise to fulfil, but the region does so quite admirably.

Presenting something of a south-to-north orientation, the region features tall uplands to the former which both step and flow down to northern lowlands, where a channel of water almost cuts the landscape in two, coming close to leaving an oval lake sitting within an island of its own.

This is a place which, whilst there are signs of human habitation, appears to be largely given over to the unspoiled beauty of nature. However, this is perhaps a little deceptive; the zip lines descending across the landscape from the highlands and the kayaks and boats down on the waters of the channel and lake reveal opportunities for fun and laughter which might break into the sense of serenity as they offer the more active visitor the chance for a little good-natured excitement.

Exploring the setting can be done either on foot or on horseback – there are several places throughout where a horse can be obtained, whilst those with their own wearable horses can always use those, if so minded. Those who really fancy a challenge can also grab a bicycle and use their pedal extremities as motive power – but to be honest, riding down the slopes from the north side of the island is not something I’d relish – and least, not without a parachute just in case!

The landing point is set mid-way down the southern highlands. Here, on a broad outthrust of rock extending away from the southern cliffs prior to itself falling away to the lands below, sits an impressive lodge. It presents itself as a place into which people can retreat for a game, time in a hot tub, an romantic meal or simply to rest in the bar lounge. Before it, and short walks from the landing point are the first of the bicycle and horse rezzers, whilst one of the region’s zip lines awaits the daring, as it drops away from a deck extending out over the sheer rock face fronting the lodge.

However, before being too quick to depart the lodge and start exploring, a wander around to the gardens behind the lodge is recommended, as it is within them that one of the setting’s little secrets is tucked away; a gated grotto with a mix of the magical and the romantic within, over which can also be found an outdoor space for entertainment and dancing.

Exactly how the latter is reached (save by teleporting) is a little unclear; there is a grassy path extending east which rolls upwards just beyond the wooden gazebo. However, it does not seem to connect with the dance area directly, but instead provides access to two further routes of exploration, both pointing westwards.

The first forms a rocky step directly behind and above the lodge’s garden, its southern side formed by vertical cliff walls from which water drops into a pool (and a subterranean channel, given the pool doesn’t overflow?) towards their western end, where the path become a broad grass slope tumbling gently down to the northern lowlands to offer a path along the banks of the water channel which cuts into the region.

The second path runs almost the entire width of the setting, sitting atop the high cliffs as it passes a further point where horses or bicycles might be obtained, before also turning north to follow a rocky / hilly shoulder of land as it descends down towards the lowlands to reach the little silver of land connecting the southern aspect of the region the ring of land surrounding the lake.

The land around the lake offers its own treats and places to explore, from the aforementioned boats and kayaks to little hideaways, a cosy beach, the opportunity to try one’s hand at slip boarding – and even conversing with the local centaurs! Places to sit and explore abound throughout, and those who wander the banks of the channel bordering the lake might spot another of the region’s secrets: the dark maw of a cavern mouth awaiting the adventurous (or curious!), one with perhaps a little touch of Smaug lying within.

Caught in an eternal spring afternoon, Timeless Seasons makes for a rewarding – and obviously photogenic – visit. With hewn rock signposts to help guide folk around it, lots of choice of both exploration and means of exploration or for just chilling and / or cuddling, the region is deserving of the time spent within it, and finished in a subtle soundscape.

SLurl Details

• Timeless Seasons (rated Moderate)