Whale Watching
Right before we reached the cave, we actually got to cross on one of those really old bridges! Wow, ancient history!
We arrived so early that we were able to join the group ahead of us rather than wait the hour for our group to start. This is our British guide, attempting to grow an Icelandic disguise!
The entryway into the cave. It's actually a lava tube, with a partly collapsed roof. It goes by the name Vidgelmir.
How that thin roof survives freeze thaw cycles, especially with that crystal pattern of cracks, is a mystery! I moved quickly while under it...
The lava tube is large. A set of stairs has been built, and the cave is now protected from unauthorized entry, by a gate further down.
You can see the remains of the last lava to run through here. This was real about 1,100 years ago. The tube is 1.5 km long, but the tour only reaches about half way in.
This is one of the thin roof sections, but this one has not collapsed (yet). It is likely that the lava flow was pushed up here, and eroded away several layers.
This mess of chocolate icing is all that was left once the lava flow stopped. The remaining lava layers on the wall solidified very quickly, so that in days, this all hardened.
The guide gave a good explanation, and provides some scale as to the size of this place.
While taking pictures here, it was so dark that the camera wanted several seconds to take the previous pictures. That was ok when there was a railing to rest the camera on.
Then I switched the camera to manual mode and set the camera to take only 1 second exposures, and it changed how the scenes looked. Now it seemed more real.
This is better lighting. Now you get an idea of the experience, at how large and dark it could be!
Here's another thin roof section. You can see the ripples in the lava. This was on the surface while it was molten.
The guide had us try to find the troll face in the rock shadows... I couldn't...
So they left me to study the place, and then I got lost when my headlight died.
...next page.