When I switched the simpc on today, the sign-on screen was showing a rather fine, obviously Chinese or similar landscape. I usually just think - "nice" and login without much further thought, but this time round I clicked one of the "show me" type links before signing in. The subsequent Bing screen (as shown below) told me this was in the Huixian Wetlands in the Guangxi Province in Southern China. So I thought I'd try and find the location in 2024 and see what it looked like. I'm rather glad I did - it's pretty spectacular. Also, not (as far as I'm aware) a particular POI within the sim, just the normal level of scenery display for 2024. Which just convinces me even further that this is likely to be the sim that takes my attention most of the time now, and also encourages me to think that I won't necessarily be buying anything like the same amount of scenery addons I did in the past.

Took a bit of digging around on Google Earth, but eventually found what looked like the right location, and a nearby airport - ZGKL. So off I went. The Savage Norden is becoming my aircraft of choice for these trips so far, at least until my previous 2020 hangar becomes properly usable in 2024. The Norden feels like a direct replacement for the Savage Grravel of 2020 with a lot of the same sort of capabilities.

I took way more screenies of the scenery than I did the flight, but I'll spare you most of those and just drop a couple in to show how spectacular it is up close. A highly recommended location to visit. But then I suspect pretty much most places on the planet are now. I've done a couple of totally absorbing trips around some absolutely average locations in the likes of Gloucestershire lately and they too have been stunning. I know the sim is apparently not working totally as desired for the tubeliner folk amongst you, but for me it is simply magnificent, even with all it's ridiculous little errors and c0ckups. All shots my usual 4k and originally HDR. Settings ultra plus TLOD/OLOD at 400.

So, we start with the Bing sales pitch -

And then off from ZGKL, which is nothing special in itself

and then heading off in a SSE direction, you can see the hills we're aiming for about 15-20km ahead

From what I could see on Google Earth, this area like most of the planet has way too many trees here in 2024, but when it's out in the landscape like this I can live with that. More of an issue when you get this sort of thing downtown in the big cities.

First little lakes visible now

The plan was to put down and go walkies

But I got bitten in the LOD. What looks like a nice flat piece of grassland when you approach suddenly grows a whole crop of all sorts once you get within about 100 feet or so

which rather threw me and made me panic on the brakes. Which is never a good thing in this plane.

But since I was on the ground and survived, I went walkies and took loads of pix. I'll just include one as an example

And then I thought I'd take a special shot for Bob, because I know he likes his pebbles. It wouldn't let me drop the camera below the water surface, unfortunately. Very disappointed that this piece of overpriced disgusting so-called realistic software doesn't come with working newts or frogs though. Asobo should be loudly condemned for that.

This really does feel like a whole new world to explore. And the great thing is that it's not even the big name places that are likely to provide all the wonders.

Nice catch of shots Andy, and seems this was a fine Trip.. 

cheers 😉

A thorough (and beautiful) series of pictures from your explorations of these (randomly chosen) locales...that the (add-on) scenery creators of the SIM did not prompt us to fly into ...🙂...

Yes, this is the forte of MSFS, compared to our earlier SIMS. We can now explore wherever we want in the world, with some semblance of realism, guaranteed...except, as you said, some "newts" and "frogs" are missing ...🙂... Oh well...(BTW, I had to look up what "newts" are...🙂...and due to some reason, I was first led on-line to the British English offensive slang term for it...but I know you didn't mean that here...🙂...) ...

Thanks for sharing...!

On 1/6/2025 at 7:49 AM, pmplayer said:

Nice catch of shots Andy, and seems this was a fine Trip.

Thanks pmplayer, and yep, it was quite rewarding.

3 hours ago, P_7878 said:

We can now explore wherever we want in the world, with some semblance of realism

Cheers P_7878, and I'm finding this to be mostly true, but have still found some pretty badly done areas even in 2024 with its new textures. Hopefully it will all come up to the better levels eventually.