Dangazi Win-Win

Our very last stop this season was on a small but riotously lovely grid called Shipyards, the HG Address is as always at the end of the post. You may remember our epic tour of another sim here, the Dew Drop Islands. Today instead, it was the turn of The Dangazi Forest, we were on a walking tour in countryside with an interesting origin story. Owned by Danger Lytton and Azi Az, who were both on hand to welcome us at the small island in the stream.

Danger Lytton: Hello and Welcome.  Please be sure to set your ENVIRONMENT to shared and set MEDIA to automatic.  Take a copy of the umbrella by mousing over it and clicking. We are in a rain forest so you will want it.  And finally touch the TP board to the sea shell beach and wait for all of us there. You can go beachcombing there and find the 20 or so beautiful sea shells while you wait for the others to arrive.

Azi waiting for us on the seashore

Tina Bey: jeje veo a todos desnudos lol

Tosha Tyran: yes, Tina, me too ah, I was too much time in the sun my ass is all burned

Azi Az: here you can hunt for shells. If you enjoy beach combing there are nice shells to collect on this beach :)))

Nara Nook: I got a seashell

Yes We Candoranien

Willkommen in Candoranien: whispers:   You are greeted!

 It has been determined that I will meet you right here.

 Thus i would like to correspond to my destiny and tell you: Welcome!

  Welcome to the fantastic world of middle ages roleplaying.

Arrival point on Candoranien

This Safari finale began on a stunning playground for anyone who loves adventure, gallantry, and enjoys their chivalry with just a little taste of vampirism and piratical good humor thrown in. It's a 'yes we can' kind of place. That's CandorsRPWorld - and specifically the big region called Candoranien, the HG Address is of course at the end of the post. There's loads to see on this grid, you may remember this post about it from last year. When Scarlett Von Candors said she would be willing to host us, we jumped at the chance to go!

A bit like last week when lots of Frenchies from all over opensim were there to welcome us to Vulcano Stirpe region on Bloodmoon grid, there were lots of residents and friends of Candanien on hand to help Scarlett welcome the Safari group; - Butschi, Marlis, Rufus, Cosa, Briana, Calvin, Isabelle, Doris, Thalion, Theodor, Muna, Trawell, Udo,Willi, Calvin, Karsten, and Loru, although I may have missed a few names. How great it is to have such support and intergrid friendships. That's the spirit. 

Belze Cherub: Hallo-Hello-Salut-Γειά σου-Ciao-Привет-¡Hola-Merhaba-

Theodor Schildhauer[de→en]: Be enjoyed valued ​​guests

Star Ravenhurst: Hello Everyone!

Karsten Runningbear[de→en]: Greetings to you, Sir Theodor. Hello everyone and cheers :)

Whirli Placebo: waving

Cosa Wiefel: Greetings travelers

Scarlett vonCandors[de→en]: First of all, welcome to our medieval role -playing play in Candoranien. We are going to make a little excursion today about our Sim, we normal citizens, nobility, knights, beggars to Vikings, vampires, magicians and a lot more.

Wyld Ride

 Fitheach Eun and Tessa Lacombe were on Wyldwood Bayou Grid to welcome us for the second stop of our Safari this week. Wyldwood is well known for its Rockin' the Blues events, its roleplay groups, and its lovely New Orleans build, a popular stop off during carnival season in particular. Today though we were heading for another sim entirely, Wyld Thangs, a region of rides and relaxation.

Fitheach Eun

Neo Cortex: Safari incoming! Take cover!

Contessa Lacombe: runs into the barn... Hey Star! Hi Mal! Hey Forest! Hi Alex!

Thirza Ember: lots of body bits!

Star Ravenhurst: We have a crowd.

Malburns Craftster: Fear and Loadings in the metaverse - has a certain ring to it

Fitheach Eun: Welcome to Wyldwood Bayou’s Wyld Thangs Ride Park. Kith Whitehawk, Contessa Lacombe, Harmony Beningborough and I (Fitheach Eun) built this region as a play-ground for the Wyldwood Bayou Grid. It has always been open to Hypergridders looking for fun. We have an awesome and scary motocross, a skate park with an obstacle course, a beach area, an outdoor cinema and some really beautiful scenery along with 2 music venues where we occasionally offer events.

Star Ravenhurst and Contessa Lacombe consider their options

Fitheach Eun: It’s a great region to tour on horseback, 4-wheeler, or motorcycle. You can bring your own vehicles and rez them in the designated areas. We will take you on a brief tour and then you can choose where you want to play. We also have freebie shops at the Water Park, Skate Park and Vehicle Barn. There is even a Food Court next to the Skate Park. The sign in front of the barn has folders of information on how to fix a number of common Opensim issues. We spent a lot of time re-searching and testing to create those for our music club audiences. Please grab any that interest you.

Safari Visits Vulcano

Our first stop this week was on Bloodmoon grid, run by Vlad and Vanessa Van Helsing, previously owners of Virtual Dreams grid, and before that, the beautiful Les Carpathes grid, among other iterations. Largely a francophone grid, today on Bloodmoon we met up with the Spanish-speaking  Arponera Vulcano  together with her beautiful and creative family - Jaina and Desiree Vulcano. 

Lots of people showed up in solidarity with the Vulcanos, so there were already about 12 people at the arrival point before the Safari group headed over there at exactly 12 noon SLT - yeah, we try to be good guests and not show up early when the hostess is still putting on her lipstick and setting out the canapes!

Jaina, Arponera, and Desiree Vulcano [l to r] wait on the castle steps for their guests

A big group inevitably leads to some arrival lag but we did pretty well this time. A lot of that is thanks to the fact that Safari goers try not to wear super complex avies (in other words, less than 300k complexity) and they also mostly try to keep their MySuitcase as empty as possible, just to give the grid a chance to absorb our arrival. Keeping draw distance down to something around half the maximum possible setting is also a good move. Why? Your Viewer, when you arrive in a new place, communicates with the new sim (and 'child' or adjacent sims) and grabs info on every object, script, texture etc within draw distance. Exhausting! But we did really well and soon Arpo was able to begin her introduction.  

Queen of the Paths

 Tutz Zabelin is, frankly, Queen of the paths. This week for our second destination, we visited one of her many beautiful landscape regions, this one called The Waterfall Swamp, on Pangea grid... HG Address is at the end of the post... but you knew that already. 

Tutz Zabelin

Our visit of the swamp was originally scheduled for later in the year but due to a last minute cancellation, so we were very happy that Tutz and grid owner Marlon Wayne were able to lay on our tour with very little notice. Shout out to grid gal Kitty Sarrasine also for making sure we had everything optimal! And yeah, the Fall Safari calendar is already beginning to fill up, so if you're interested in having us come visit in September - October - November, it's not too soon to get in touch. Read this page first though. Points 3 and 5 at the end of the page are pretty much a deal breaker.

 Pangea is of course one of Opensim's premiere art grids, with an embarras de richesses - so much to choose from! - this however was a brand new sim to everyone on the tour, and as usual Tutz quickly gave us the lowdown on the origins of her creation. 

Arriving on The Waterfall Swamp

Dings Digital: this place looks awesome

Star Ravenhurst: There are a lot of us today.

Tutz Zabelin: welcome to Pangea grid and sim Waterfall Swamp. Most of you know my background, but in short I started in SL in 2006 and have been in Open sim most of the time since 2014.

Lily Willow: all these places are super amazing  :-)

A Tout Sweet Safari

 The region Novale on Creanovale grid has four glorious seasons, just like the real world it represents, the wildly beautiful Eastern Canadian countryside. It is the home of an extraordinary couple, very talented both in scripting and building, Dabici Straulino and Kelso Uxlay.

Spring comes relatively late to Canada, there's still snow in April, but of course when the sun does finally break through, then it's go time in the garden, and everything changes. Dramatic scenery on every hand has proved to be a great inspiration to Dabici who lays our the region, full of charming details like this garden-in-a-bottle. Kelso's speciality is, of course, scripting, and the many rides that animate the sim are signs of his skill.

This seasonal build will soon give way to the Summer Novale build, so don't delay if you want to visit! HG Address is as always, at the end of the post.

We arrived at the big tent in the corner of the region, which offers excellent resources to find your way around the build if you're a newcomer. Here's Mal Burns in his trademark stetson (no, not a turban, Forest, we all want to see a photo of whatever it is you see on Mal's head)

We all took a seat and got some background about how the sim goes through four big changes each year as it's dressed for the season. This arrival point has at the moment lots of spring and Easter-related items like the chocolate egg, and animals...

Bloom's MIDI Magic

 Maia Antarra: the one hud to rule them all

Our final stop today was on Winxtropia, to see Bloom Peter's MIDI tool. There was an extended post about it a few weeks ago but of course reading about a place isn't anything like actually visiting, and projects like this one are always getting developed, expanded, and moved ahead in ways that the written word can't always keep up with.

Bloom is undoubtedly an Opensim treasure. The first visit by the Safari to one of her sims was - can you believe it? - in July of 2014, on OSGrid - we visited her famous roller coaster build, back then we knew her as the avatar Cuteulala Artis. 

It all begins with the keyboard.

But today's visit was all about the keyboard, all about the software, the music, the dancing. the cats, and making something even more outrageously fun... We arrived on Crescent Melody Studio (HG Addresses at the end of this post) which is a minimalist space, giving all possible energy to the explanation and demonstration of Bloom's MIDI tool

A Princely Safari

A slightly shorter trip today to visit Maze grid, run by Prince Amor. He's a big Star trek fan and we visited his Solar System region about a year ago, if you recall that flight between all the planets on a saucer, over on OSGrid. This was before the recent Asset event on OSgrid, and this time we're checking out Prince's own grid which boasts about twenty public regions plus plenty of residentials.

Fitheach Eun: Hi Prince

Tosha Tyran: Hi Prince, you look like it is best to keep a little distant... :D

Maia Antarra: hi Prince,  if I bump into anyone...I can't see you so sorry about that... ok now that is one scary avatar prince!

Prince Amor: I try to be different, different avatar a day keeps ones mind fresh

Thirza Ember: saves on soap also

The Welcome sim on Maze has a large Building Supplies store, and if you look on the map you'll see a whole sim dedicated to free complete avatars, organized into separate stores according to category, but since the Safari doesn't do well at a Mall between everyone getting lag and getting distracted, our trip was focused on Prince himself and two sims, Maze Grid Home and Medieval Desert Fortress Fantasy -  good old HG Addresses at the end of the post as usual.

Prince Amor: feel free to take what you like there and share them long as you don't charge for them that is what they are there for

On Satori

Our first trip this week was to Alternate Metaverse Grid, and the lovely sim Satori which at first glance would seem to be simply a well appointed beach resort, until you discover a whole other world up in the sky.  

It doesn't happen every week, for sometimes there's mad chaos in the minutes before the HG Safari tour begins, when a host goes awol or a region goes offline or someone asks a question that does not compute. But sometimes, there's a delicious calm before the storm, and this week was one of the delicious kind. Not least because our first stop was at the home of the deliciously golden Maia Antarra, DJ, builder, choreographer, Reiki practitioner, and more... 

Maia Antarra

... and the darkly suited and harder to get on camera Savage Taurus, the master scripter whose work amplifies and animates this cleverly laid out region.  Normally there's one Thirza at the Clubhouse and another goes a few minutes before the event begins to our first destination to facilitate our arrival. 

Savage Taurus: hello Thirza,  have you come for the tour? 

Maia Antarra: she's the ringleader

Savage Taurus: awesome. I think the saucer is working right

Maia Antarra: well it if has a malfunction we all get jettisoned into space that's all...  spacesuits available in the shop over yonder

Sybella

Vlad Helsing: on est en voice je ne sais pas si tu nous entend

So, you know how I'm always on at you about 'we have to do the Safari in Local Chat and not in Voice', bla bla bla, because Voice tends to exclude a lot of folks whose English is pretty good but who, in the evening on a weeknight, aren't up to following a full conversation at top speed; not to mention those of us who, for one reason or another, can't join in with anything audio during the tour, and you all secretly (or not so secretly) think that's a terrible idea...  

Max the Guide, on Sybella

That's why it's always fun to meet with the frenchies, who absolutely don't care that the majority of Safari visitors can't follow a thing being said in Voice. It's good for your souls, to see things from the other point of view, and it gives me a delicious opportunity to say I told you so. But that's not the main reason we hopped over to Ignis Fatuus Grid this week. 

Pure Lunacy at Magicland

Lunacy? No, it was a great idea. Stone and  Hope Lunasea invited the Safari over to Neverworld grid for a visit this week to Magicland. The theme of the visit to this region is theme parks, as in Disney and co - all the fun of the fair. We met outside the cinema.

Stone Lunasea: Welcome everyone to Hopestone's Magicland!

James.Atlloud: great music

Hope Lunasea: Hey there, everyone. Welcome.

Dings Digital: Hello :)

Generally there are two Thirzas on every tour, one arrives before the crowd, and the other is the last to arrive, so it's always interesting to see the two different perceptions of a sim on the same screen. This region responded manfully to the onslaught of 15 plus strangers from all over the HG. In terms of avatars, Safari people on the whole try to go for something not too complex or full of daft scripts and HUDs, (using a legacy body instead of a basic mesh one can instantly lower your complexity by over 100k, for example) and we generally also try to keep our My Suitcase folder pretty empty, knowing that the sim has to comb through all our belongings when we arrive, including broken assets we maybe have from freebie shopping in OSGrid, and that all takes resources away from the main thing, which is showing us the sim.

Star Ravenhurst: Hugs... I see a lot of body parts floating around,  and I have no hair!!

Dings Digital: who's leg is this?

Taarna Welles: Not mine :)

James Atlloud: Am I all white again?

Thirza Ember: no james you're in a dinner suit

Kelso Uxlay: Nice suit James

James Atlloud: ty Kelso - my favorite so far

Stone Lunasea: There is a big gold dance ball up in the air behind me if anyone wants to dance :)

Taarna Welles: Need to dance with this music

Thirza Ember: lol gradually all will arrive... it's like going by train, some of your stuff is in the end wagon, but it will all get to the station eventually

Govega Sachertorte: lol give it a minute

Yara Eild: Hello everyone :-)

Alex .Salamander: Hello everyone :-)

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Alex and Yara!

Hope Lunasea: Lots of people. lol...

Tosha Tyran: you are all... alll... transparent

Govega Sachertorte: yea but slowly coming in

Tosha Tyran: now I am all dressed, dear Forest... to me...

Forest Azure: lol, that is what you think, Tosha :)

Star Ravenhurst: Nope Tosha, still undies - Gotta love traveling the Hypergrid!

Stone Lunasea: Alright, everyone rezzed in?... I thought I'd start with a bit of the park's history

Stone and Hope Lunacy

Stone Lunasea: Established in 2014 as That Place Amusement Park on SecondLife and in 2016 in Opensim, we quickly rose to fame as a Top 10 Hot Spot on SL and were eventually blogged by the Lindens and made a Featured Destination. We still operate a park on SL in the Linula region, next door to The Unknown Theme Park on the mainland. We've changed grids over the years, but have been on Neverworld for over 3 years now and are pretty sure this is our permanent home. It's a great place to live!

James Atlloud: So good to hear positive stories about grids.

Dings Digital: yes, great

Stone Lunasea: Magicland, our most recent expansion, was launched just last year at Christmas time. This region features our Electrical Light Parade, Movie Theater, and Shopping District. There's also a few rides here: the Magic Carpet Ride, Alien Abduction, and Santa's Sleigh Ride, a left over from Christmas, as well as our Hot Air Balloon Merry-Go-Round. Finally, behind the theater you'll find Mickey's Fishing Hole, where you can fish for prizes. We have Free Movies every Monday here at Magicland Theater, the schedule can be found at the main landing point or on the wall inside the theater.

The Cinema schedule. In the foreground, Uta Warbaum

Hope Lunasea: Oh yes and I think Neverworld is our perfect fit. :)

Stone Lunasea: yeah we try to do both, they both have their pros & cons

Thirza Ember: why both? what does each offer that's different in your experience

Stone Lunasea: Honestly....not much at this point. We're actually talking about shutting the SL park down....eventually Used to be the traffic but our traffic here nearly matches SL these days so it's more nostalgia keeping the SL park open

Lynnestra Parker: What is the name of the park in SL?

Stone Lunasea: Hopestone

Thirza Ember: do parks make money in sl? if you don't mind me asking

Stone Lunasea: haha no

Forest Azure: you wat to open one, Thirza?

Thirza Ember: I already have a freak show, Forest

Stone Lunasea: Back when there were a lot of parks on SL we did, at least half the tiers. But these days I might see $5 in tips on a good month.

Lynnestra Parker: I love amusement parks in virtual. I don't get sick on the rides. hehehe

Hope Lunasea: We have plenty here to ride, Lynnestra. :)

Stone Lunasea: same here, for me I started building rides after a car accident left me walking with a cane. I can't ride real ones anymore so I build them in VR

Stone Lunasea: First up, we'd like to present our Electrical Light Parade.   If everyone could kindly clear the Main Street & move onto the sidewalks that'd be great :)  It takes a couple minutes for the parades to reach this part of Main Street, but it syncs with the music best if we watch here in front of the theater.

Grid: Ladies & Gentlemen! Boys & Girls! MagicLand proudly presents our spectacular pageant of Night time Magic & Imagination! Please set your viewers to SHARED ENVIRONMENT, enable radio and prepare to be dazzled by the Mainstreet Electrical Light Parade!

Hope Lunasea: /me holds in excitement. :)

James Atlloud: OH wow.

Lynnestra Parker: How cool!!!

Dings Digital: woooooooot

Forest Azure: you are typing my back, James :)

James Atlloud: does it tickle?

Forest Azure: yes! /me will have sweet sweet revenge

Hope Lunasea: lol

Tosha Tyran: Joshua! You are safe now

Joshua 7: rofl

James Atlloud: So a fence for Safari... hmmm

 Stone Lunasea: The parade took over 6 years to develop, all of the floats and NPCs were built by Hope, then I scripted everything to move, and play nice. Getting the floats to not rear end each other was harder than you'd think!

Hope Lunasea: It's to be sure you don't get ran over by Goofy. We know how he can get. And yes. The floats were made by me.

James Atlloud: I see Mickey and Minnie!

Govega Sachertorte: great team Stone is a great scripter and mover and Hope is a great builder of things

Stone Lunasea: we make a good team :)

Stone Lunasea: Should be seeing the parade coming down Main Street now and make sure Parcel media is on. The Electrical Light Parade has always held a special place in my heart. Growing up in California, I was at Disneyland frequently as a kid but the parade was always at Midnight; by that time, my tiny butt was sound asleep in my stroller! I got to see it a couple of times but it became an almost obession - and the Magicland Electrical Light Parade was born! Now everyone, no matter where they are, can enjoy a touch of that ol' Disney magic!

Govega Sachertorte: love the mushies

Dings Digital: lol great jazz music

Nexus Storm: Nice !!!

Tosha Tyran: wow, it looks lovely, can I hitch a ride?

Stone Lunasea: no, but I like that idea

Hope Lunasea: Interesting fact: I've never seen the Electrical Light Parade in real life so all this was watching like at least five different videos on YouTube.

Not all the NPCs showed up for the parade, but we got the general idea.

Lynnestra Parker: Pete's dragon!!!

Stone Lunasea: We have the parade every Monday in between the weekly movies at intermission, so there's always a chance to see it again in it's full glory :)

Akila Mobian: That was really cool! :D

Uta Warbaum:  BRAVOOOO!!!

Stone Lunasea: it was a lot of fun to build

Stone Lunasea: We have a double feature every Monday starting at 2pm grid time

Govega Sachertorte: it's on our website schedule 

Lynnestra Parker: The music is terrific too!

Gemmalynn Sabine: very impressive

Stone Lunasea: Next up we'd like to bring y'all over to the Amusement Park where the tour will continue. I'll summon The Doctor here shortly who will transport us as a group. Once The Doctor tells you to, touch the T.A.R.D.I.S. to be included in the group teleport.

The Doctor: Give me just a few seconds to tidy up and we'll be on our way!

Lynnesta Prarker: Hello Doctor. Got any gummy babies?

Dings Digital: do you have a bus?

eva Nowicka: oh, i want that TARDIS

The Doctor: Course set for Amusement Park.  Waiting 60 seconds for additional riders.  Touch me now to join this teleport.

The TARDIS teleport wouldn't play with us, possibly we overwhelmed it, but there was an easy fix...

Stone Lunasea: We have a hover taxi waiting for us at the amusement park but I'm not sure if it can handle this many rides so we may be walking, we'll try it :)

Thirza Ember: it went without us... but unlike Xenon's bus, at least we're not crashing into a river

Star Ravenhurst: Her bus was crazy with a mind of its own. 

Govega Sachertorte: omg lol who hasn't done that a million times we have so many roads here... we found out the secret to sim crossings.  it doesn't require anything special either but it works. Anyone want to know I will share at our next Never Riders today at 2 pm

Hope Lunasea: If all else fails, you can open up your big Map and type in "Amusement Park" and just TP that way.

Taarna.Welles: ok

Stone Lunasea: Sorry for the glitches! Welcome to The Rabbit Hole, this is the original entrance to the Second Life park and was installed in Opensim due to popular demand. To begin, simply walk in and allow yourself to fall down the rabbit hole.

Stone Lunasea: Touch the potion on the counter if you get stuck. :)

Whirli Placebo takes a sip

White Rabbit: shouts:  Welcome to Wonderland! Start your adventure by going down the Rabbit Hole. If you get stuck, EAT something or DRINK something; and remember, the way forward is sometimes the way back.

Stone Lunasea: Ok, I think everyone's down here?  Welcome to the Amusement Park! Out on the river here, you'll see part of the Alice in Wonderland ride, a truly memorable experience! This region features more than 25 different rides and attractions, we don't have time to see them all today but we'll see a good amount of them - and you are always welcome to come back later!

Brad: whispers: Hold on to your prims, off we go!!

Brad the bus driver had a secret up his sleeve... it was a flying bus! Up we soared into the sky, too quick for my camera, but very impressive in person.

Star Ravenhurst: Are we moving and I don't realize it?

Whirli.Placebo: the show must go on

Dings Digital: yayyyy

James Atlloud: whaa? expectations challenged!!

Akila Mobian: That caught me off guard lol

Stone Lunasea: Our first stop is our Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, based off of the original ride at Disneyland, it boasts an exciting adventure where you will encounter pirates, have to evade the Royal Navy and survive the deadly Kraken! If that's too much action for you, we also have the Wild Rapids ride, a great way to cool off on those hot summer days!

Govega Sachertorte: a flying coach

Thirza Ember: and in a good way, this week

Whirli Placebo: ooohing and ahhing

Stone Lunasea: Our Video Rides have taken years to develop. Using specially encoded Point-of-View (POV) videos, we take you into a full immersion experience and transport you into the real world rides! Featuring rides such as Roger Rabbit's ToonTown, Harry Potter & The Escape from Gringott's, and The Simpsons, we have some of the most popular rides on the planet! If you're feeling nostalgic, you can take a trip with Captain EO which was discontinued from Disneyland in the early 1990s and even take a trip to Endor on Star Tours, your ticket to the stars!

James Atlloud: That was so cool!

Inside the Simpsons ride

Stone Lunasea: A special note about Star Tours, the video sequence we use is actually not from the real life ride itself! An absolutely brilliant YouTuber went through the old videos of the original ride, recreated every last detail in mesh, then filmed it in 3D. I've been doing this 20 years & I just thought someone had finally managed to upscale that grainy old 1980s footage to HD, but nope. It's truly a sight to see and an awesome application of 3D VR tech!

Whirli Placebo: amazing, Stone

Stone Lunasea

Stone Lunasea: There's more to see but in true Wonderland style, WE'RE LATE! Go figure. We'll go a head and wrap things up here, if everyone wants to jump off the Taxi :) If anyone has any questions or feedback, we're all ears. Hope you guys enjoyed the tour and let me know if you need a landmark to come back later!

Gemmalynn Sabine: thank you so much! That was amazing!

Thirza Ember: I love the bus, it  has restored my faith in mass transport... thanks so much everyone from neverworld and of course Stone and Hope most of all

Stone Lunasea: yeah Brad did pretty good considering I stretched his Taxi from a 4 seater to 20 LOL

Star Ravenhurst: We have been known to sit in each others laps!

Dabici Straulino: thanks, nice colourful tour

Tosha Tyran: for the place, for showing us, for the imaginative rides and all the fun

Dings Digital: yes, thank you so much, it is wonderful

Francisco Koolhoven: this was great, thank you!

Stone Lunasea: Thank you all so much for coming! This has been fun!

Govega Sachertorte: thank you for coming

Forest Azure: thanks a lot! that was real fun :)

HG Address: 

hg.neverworldgrid.com:8002:Magicland
hg.neverworldgrid.com:8002:Amusement Park

Safari Does Bad Driving

Oh yes, very  Bad - but in a very good sense! This was our second stop of Week 11 of HG Safari 2025, and like our first destination, this build is brand new.

Yara Eild, SoA BAD, and Alex Salamander

SoA BAD and Siwas have a new attraction on their grid, CCI - the Nuerburgring. Really, that should be 'Nürburgring' with an umlaut. But, as we all know, Opensim doesn't do umlauts, so there's an extra e in there. And speaking of 'extra', this build is extra in every way - extra large, extraordinarily detailed, and extra fun. The idea of having a Safari here came from two Safari regulars - Yara Eild and Alex Salamander.

Actually, that should be 'Nuerburgring with Nordschleife'  (the HG address is of course at the end of the post) and that is because this race track has a long and complex history. Nordschleife - the 'North Loop' - extends the circuit from just over 5 km to a whopping 21km. 

Safari Ferðast um Ísland

Back for season 2, and HG Safari was invited to come and do a 'ferðast', or tour, of Jimmy's recent build, Iceland, on Wolf Territories Grid. A nice big crowd showed up to inaugurate the season, which will last just seven weeks this time, ending at the end of May, so if you're thinking you might want to attend, don't delay. 

This lovely sim, our first stop this week, was built in a matter of a few days by Jimmy, and it absolutely captures the spirit of the island. HG Address - yep you guessed it, at the end of the post.

Jimmy Olsen, builder of Iceland

On hand to take the lead for the tour, the lovely Tessa and Xenon Darrow, a brilliant and funny lady, both were ready to help us find our way around this interesting sim. 

We arrived outside the Hallgrimskirkja, the Lutheran cathedral of Reykjavik, dating from the 1980's. 

WB Osgrid

 Welcome back, OSGrid! About a dozen people were on LBSA a few minutes ago when these pics and gifs were made. 

LBSA back up! with Admins Sarah Kline and Paela Argus. 

People dancing, chatting, laughing, working... and a lot of them trying to rebuild their avie. Ellen Tiratzo was there, talking about the best way to stop being a cloud. Carmen Ever, very smart, was totally prepared for this day. 

Carmen Ever: I had a folder with my outfit all ready, and so when I got here, I transferred it from Neverworld , and it loaded immediately

Una, IARs, and OARs

In the troubled period since OSGrid went into long term maintenance, Unadecal Masala has found himself in a unique position. He not only rents regions to people in OSGrid, he also rents full independent grids. Most of these grids are small and private in nature, but some are public and they operate their own land rental schemes. Una doesn't have a grid of his own, his motives are simple.

Unadecal Masala: As a mark of respect for their efforts in attracting members and building their own communities, I decided at the beginning that I would never compete with them by setting up a grid where I rent land. I do have a private grid, but this is for testing purposes only.

We met up on HIE region, in the Hypergrid Expo park, on which is still open, if you haven't yet gone around and picked up the LMs, information cards, and freebies. I wondered what Una's reaction was to the whole OSgrid situation, and what had been the effect on his business and his clients. First reaction?

Unadecal Masala: Absolute dismay. Borderline desperation. Not only because of the grid going into long term maintenance, but because of the total asset wipe. Almost twenty years of OpenSim history lost in the blink of an eye.

Easter Hunt at Mana

Literally speaking, 'Ignis Fatuus' means foolish fire, but there is nothing foolish about the fabulous builds on this outstandingly beautiful French grid. And once again, this spring, grid owners Max Well and Nadir Rae are making imaginations soar with their farfetched fantasies. An Easter Hunt, beginning on 20 April, is just part of the fun! 

Full HG Address at the end of the post, of course.

Here we are on Mana, on of a bunch of new regions springing up on Ignis - this is the region where the Hunt will be held. When you arrive in this intensely blue place, you're immediately reminded of the importance of music in the lives of these two creators, in particular, Nadir's love of piano which extends to her DJ work over in SL, something she's been doing for over a decade. Look at those waterside notes.

A Bayou Bye Bye

The final part of the final Safari of the season took us over to the brightly colored N'awlins build on Wyldwood Bayou Grid. It's a great combination of historical recreations, party venue, freebie mall (definitely worth exploring the sim for some unusual, useful, and beautiful finds) , and landscape with both swamp and street plan, a complete delight - HG address at the end of the post, of course! 

On hand to greet us, two Wyldwood stalwarts, Fitheach Eun and Kith Whitehawk. They held over the their traditional Carnival celebrations for us, so that the Safari could go out in style with a Louisiana spring in our step.

Kith Whitehawk: Now that's Mardi Gras brother!!!!

Luna Lunaria: These guys love playing rock blues :-)

Safari Boosts its Brains

Our first stop of the week was on Virtual Learning Village, usually this grid is mostly closed to Hypergrid tourists because it is a place of learning and meditation, for improving your brain health. What better place to end a hectic 10 weeks of HG travel. The sim has a European feel, like an elegant suburb in a historic city.

Lisenna welcomes the HG Safari group - arriving a little bit at a time, and in grey.

Lissena Wisdomseeker: Welcome to Virtual Learning Village!  VLV was created in 2018, but I have been active in Opensim since the first OSCC. I volunteer at the conference every year.  I had a region on Avacon first, then Max and I talked about developing our own grid. Our vision was to have a place outside of Second Life where we could offer our programs for organizations and groups who would benefit from a more private, controlled environment where they can design their own regions. Max's team has given this grid a very special ambiance and I am very proud of what we have built. Many thanks to Max and Buildwerk.

Lissena Wisdomseeker: whispers: Sunny has a place here, and Fran has helped us too

Maximillian Merlin: We are now in the Hypergrid region of Virtual Learning Village. The Virtual Learning Village is a non profit virtual 3D platform. The grid was developed by Lynne Berrett (Lissena Wisdomseeker) and Maximillian Merlin with his volunteer Buildwerk  team. Our umbrella nonprofit organization is the Ageless Mind Project. Our purpose is to provide lifelong learning of many kinds, all based on best practices for promoting brain health and total well-being.  The VLV grid offers limited access to and from the hypergrid, to protect our students. We have devoted much time and thought to making this virtual world more user-friendly and sheltered than SL can be. 

Dismayland, Undismayed!

Dismayland is one of the most unusual regions in Opensim, for its 'ban' on attachments, for its insulting NPCs and many scripted rides, and for the risk to life and limb! For the HG Safari visit this week, which was also Cornflakes Week, Spax Orion, the grid owner and the magician behind all these rides, lifted the no Mesh no Attachment rule, and allowed HG Safari to come and visit. 

Spax Orion

Spax had also prepared a special flying saucer ship toshow off the rides from the air, with the idea that people will get a good glimpse at the park and return to the rides on other occasions. It's one of those places where you can spend hours enjoying the variety or imaginative machines, but also the funny NPCs chatting and arguing with each other. Here's the lovely Siwas, resplendent in her many Biker attachments, enjoying the Nuclear Haste ride, as the rest of us rode around in the sky.

This week Opensim has been acting weird (well it has been doing so for several weeks, as many have noted) and lots of people are getting kicked or banned messages from places for no discernable reason. Poor James Atlloud managed to get refused entry on avatars from 3 different grids! And similar problems were found by many others. These are almost all not intentional messages by the grid owners.

There is, I'm afraid, nothing that I or the grid owners can do about that except to invite you to try again at another time, and say we're sorry we didn't have your company... and invite you not to make a drama out of a technical glitch, if at all possible.