Category: Reviews

Shawn Shakespeare got us off to our 2021 visits around Second Life with a suggestion we drop into Ambient Hideaway, a Homestead region that is a joint design by Yoyo Collas with the assistance of Mirias and Silly Snook.

A rugged setting currently caught beneath the cloak of winter, the region comprises a large island with a north-to south orientation with a smaller shelf of rock to the south-east, reached via a wooden bridge.

Visits commence in the northern highlands of the main island, a plateau sitting atop cliffs rising from an icy sea.It is home to a cosy restaurant bar delightfully called The End in contrast to it actually being the start of a journey through the region. With seating space both indoors or out under the low-lying (mesh) clouds, the bar shares the plateau with a small hall where visitors can find out about the region’s photography contest which still had a few days to run at the time of our visit, the closing date being January 6th, 2021.

There are three routes down from this plateau, each of which offers its own opportunities for discovery. To the west, wooden steps and a board walk lead down to first a lower shoulder of the plateau and then to a finger of rock pointing west as a slender promontory. Deer wander here, and a wooden cabin lends the warmth of a fire within and that of a brazier to the rear, where the snowy slopes drop down over frosted rocks to the ice and cold waters of the sea below.

Further steps  lead down to a deep bay that faces south-west, sitting between the western promontory and the southern lowlands of the main island. The bay holds within its arms a frozen beach and an old pier and deck extending into the waters, what might have once been a warehouse located on the deck now converted into a cosy snug.

Stone steps climb gently from the east side of the snow-covered beach to link with the second route down from the plateau with its bar and restaurant. Watched over by a Canadian goose and an impressive statue of a stag-headed female figure (“Hern the huntress”, perhaps?), this second path down from the landing point offers the way to a long, thin sand bar that points south and east to where a great circular tent stands in a suggestion of Genghis Khan, the horses walking the sandy finger perhaps adding the feeling one is travelling time to the Mongol times as one follows it to the tent.

Also reached from the path is an open-sided gazebo with a hint of the Christmas just passed standing alongside it, as both stand over the bridge leading to the smaller island. A beach house awaits discovery on this small shelf of rock, and while it lacks a fire inside, a brazier on the deck outside offers an invitation for visitors to go in and a spend a little time away from the cold.

The third route down from the high plateau is by way of wooden steps and platforms to a low-lying out-thrust of flat rock with a shale beach on its north side. An old shipping create, perhaps washed ashore years ago, resides here, but rather than being left to rust and fall apart, it has been turned into a comfortable little hone, complete with windows and doors cut into its side, a large raised deck offering additional outdoors space as it overlooks the beach.

This is a setting that appears to be a lot larger than the 256×256 metres of a Second Life region, the natural shaping of the land and the use of elevation and defined paths giving a sense of expansive space, while the sound scape adds to the sensation that this is place within the wilderness – perhaps an island in northern latitudes lying off the coast of a continent that is itself caught in winter.

There is a wealth of detail to be found within the setting as well – be it outdoors or within the various buildings. Couples are clearly welcome here; there are numerous opportunities for romance waiting to be found in the form of cuddle spots such as that waiting at the end of the western promontory or the old cable-car sitting on the edge of upper plateau.

Photogenic – hence the local competition – richly designed and constructed, Ambient Hideaway makes for an engaging visit; just mind the rather exuberant humpback whale off the south coast! 🙂 .

SLurl Details

• Ambient Hideaway (Maui Resort, rated Adult)

I’m rounding out my 2020 region explorations with a return trip to Biné Rodenberger’s Binemust, which Caitlyn and I last visited in September. At that time, the region was dressed as a representation of Bungenäs, a region of Sweden’s largest island, Gotland (see: Bungenäs at Binemust in Second Life).

That design is still available at ground level, but for Winter 2020/21 Biné has added a sky platform – White Binemust. As its name suggests, this is a place dressed as a winter setting that is nicely Scandinavian is style, whilst also lending itself as a snowy setting from almost any suitable mountainous region in snowy latitudes.

Blending seamlessly with a snow-capped and off-region mountain range on all sides, the platform offers a richly wooded environment – a familiar element within Biné ‘s designs, both and above water level, as she has often demonstrated an imaginative use of space within her region that has included woods and copses below sea level as well as on  land -, the setting sits under a lowering sky that suggests a lot of snow is awaiting the opportunity to fall on top of that which has already settled.

The woods hide the fact that this is setting of two levels. The upper, home to the majority of the woodland, also forms the landing point for this winter setting, sitting as it does close to a junction of pathways visitors are free to follow. One of these, marked by an avenue of arched trees, leads to a snow-bound country chapel, an icy path links the chapel with a glass and steel igloo, both of which are watched over by an unexpected guardian: and oriental-style flying dragon.

A second path leads to a large house overlooking the lower aspect of the region (of which more anon). Of a modern, clean design, with large windows and cosily furnished, the house is suited to this snowy location, and appears to be open for visitors to explore – as do all the buildings to be found with White Binemust. The icy path running to the house ends in a circular pond, its surface frozen, revealing the smooth path may itself be a stream caught beneath the ice. A small cabin sits close by the pond; in warmer days it might form a summer house converted from a greenhouse; for now it presents a cosy den / bar.

A tiny cabin and a shed offering Christmas trees round-out the high-level section of the platform. Below them, reached via a path than descends via a line of steps, and a more open space, the woodland ending at a line of trees at the foot of the slope, having marched down it to meet a rutted track that follows the contours of the hill.

The selection of buildings here – focused on another clean design of a wood-framed ranch house –  has the feel of a farm caught in the depths of winter about it. Shaggy highland cattle graze in a fences field, a wagon of hay close-by should the snow overcome the grass of the field. Across the snow and ice sits and A-frame cabin, perhaps offered as a holiday home by those who own the farm. Sitting outside of it is a little snowman offering a reminder of a more unpleasant aspect of this past year.

Although sitting below the landing point, the farm and its buildings art nestled on the edge of a mountain valley, one suggestive of being formed in the ancient past by the passage of glacier that encountered a hard table of rock that forced it to split, giving rise to the plateau on which the setting is located.

It is within this valley, visible from the large glass frontage of the farmhouse, that another of one of Binemust’s iconic elements can be found: the wreck of a Viking long ship. It’s a piece Biné uses as an emblem for her designs, a visualisation of her Norse / Scandinavian heritage.

While there are touches of Christmas to be found within the setting – decorated trees (one of them of a most interesting design), lights festooning tree branches and so on. However, this is far more a delightful winter setting than Christmas focused, thus it offer an ideal seasonal visit with which to see out the year (as it did for me) or as a winter setting in which to see in the new.

SLurl Details

• White Binemust (Binemust, rated Adult)