What gear did you have?

If you were only in iron I would avoid being anywhere near the plains and focus more on mountains.

The safe way to approach things is to max out your equipment as much as you can before going to the next biome. Explore the next biome up from the edges to collect what you can for upgrades before you beat the bosses.

So after Mountains and I am in wolf gear I will start to check out edges of plains looking to hunt lox for that food upgrade. I will spot villages to clear later but avoid contact with the inhabitants. Frankly out of the two worlds I am working on, post H&H, I just got both to silver level. So getting ready for the plains now and have not dealt with the new tar enemy thing yet. I am going to be extra cautious with those and have to figure out what will work for them.