And demon, it looks from the third pic that you found a pretty good build site. It was originally just a hill, i mined half the hill once, took me two hours. didnt really do anything so im not really sure why i did it as my base looks pretty crappy on the outside :P EDIT: I just had the most epic spelunking experience ever. i was tired of organizing crap in my chests and finishing off my tower and was running sort of low on diamonds so i decided to go mining, i went into a shaft id had some decent luck with and found a huge cave, with loads of waterfalls and pools of lava. i only brought one stack of torches though. after a while i run out and couldnt find my way back to my mine shaft, so i made a stairway to the surface. I had never been more than 150 blocks away from my base above ground so seeing plains freaked me out lol. i cut down a nearby tree and made a workbench and then a forge and compass and found my way home. was loads of fun, i found i think 14 diamonds and over 100 iron.