in between building a portal hub that has slowly sprawled into an actual hub to keep my stuff in ...

If the framing of that last image seems ripe with relief, it's because I've just fininshed haulind a boatload of iron ore from raiding a couple of crypts, taking the long way around because a troll with a tree for a club has set up shop along the natural canal that would have let me take the short one.

... two in-game days after setting off, blessedly without incident, I finally managed to make my way home.

I don't mind the swamp too much, after figuring out how to deal with them. I think they're supposed to teach you to deal with stamina debuffs by making you use the Rested buff. Between that and realizing you can plop a workbench outside of a crypt, and a campfire inside to dry you off, things become far more manageable.