At this point I really want an enchantment table.  I have diamonds and paper, and need leather (for a book) and obsidian.  I'm going to have to go out looking for cows; there's a reasonable chance of finding a surface lava pool in the process. I'd also like to have some feathers so I can use my bow. I now have enough paper for a maxed-size map, so I can search around without getting lost, and record my explorations for later.

I decide to start on the ocean as it's an easy way to get around. Before I went east, and it seems the snowy region goes on a ways, since after the Tundra biome I found the start of an Ice Plains biome. So I'll go west.

The Cold Taiga goes on for a while, as expected. It then yields to:



A Stone beach for an Extreme Hills biome. Lots of exposed coal here; I'll come mine some if I need it.

The Extreme Hills biome doesn't follow the coast long, as very quickly I come across a Highlands Tropics zone:



With my mods, I've been working on rivers in combination with the Highlands biomes. With the steeper and more complex biomes rivers cutting through them can be rather a mess. My current solution is to suppress rivers in more rugged terrain. Tropics are kind of on the boundary. Here I think the river chasm produces a nice effect although other time I've seen rivers in tropics produce messy jumbled terrain.

I sleep on the beach, and next morning get back in the boat. The Tropics also has a smallish beachfront and a I next encounter a Temperate Rainforest. And here I find:



Cows!  OK, 1 goal down. It would be a lot of work to guide these cows home - water is slow and there's Extreme Hills inland - so I'll put it off until I know they're the least bad option. I only find 2. I breed them, and then kill one (I have something of an ecological bent).

Continuing on the Rainforest turns out to be a sort of peninsula from the Tropics. After I round it there's a river that takes me somewhat inland. I decide to get off the boat and go inland, since I'm near the edge of the map anyway. Inland I find a Steppe with some more cows. I butcher and breed some more. A little further inland -



Chickens, goal 2. I breed a few and kill a few of them as well, and sleep in a valley near the exposed cave.

Beyond the Steppe is an Autumn Forest. Which has a lava pool, goal 3! A very productive trip.



And a forest fire. But, I'm equipped to handle it, and after I put it out there's only about 5 trees burned down to stumps. I mine up 4 obsidian for my enchantment table.

I head home inland. It's kind of rough at first, because there's a fairly rugged Steppe-Extreme Hills-Autumn hills junction. I end up having to bed down again on the side of an almost-cliff. But I make it over, and discover my Cold Taiga is actually next to an ordinary Forest. I must have *almost* gotten there when I got the oak tree with the apple. So I'm less isolated than I thought I was,

Soon, I'm back home. Here's the map with me standing next to my farm.



Next episode: getting some enchantments, and some (metaphorical) monster scalps.