continued… The path led to another staircase, which ended in a long, relatively thin cavern. Here was a shot looking back at the staircase from deeper inside the cavern. You can see the staircase that led up to the entrance in the background.
In this cavern, she got more into the geology of how the cave formed. This portion of the talk was similar to what we’d learned at Raufarhólshellir. We were again thankful that we’d seen the Lava Show (twice!) — the idea that running lava could form a giant hollow cave was actually counterintuitive. We probably would’ve had trouble wrapping our heads around the phenomena had we not actually seen them form in the demonstrations.
Scientists believed the top cavern was actually a lava lake. It sounded like there was a waterfall (lava fall?) of sorts where the lava dropped down to this cavern and continued flowing as a magma river. Hence the upper cavern being more round and this one being more tubular.
She pointed out the cracks in the ceiling, which were formed by water intrusion. Unlike limestone, water did not erode lava rock, so the water didn’t harm the cave’s structural integrity. In fact, the lava rock was actually a natural filter, so water that made it through the cracks into the cave was pure.
And she pointed out that the lava dripped along one of the walls had formed into what looked like a troll face.
At the end of this cavern, we came to another long, steep, spiraled staircase. We were surprised at how tall the ceilings were in this cavern. It looked to us like this ledge had been yet another “waterfall,” but she said that the scientists concluded that this cavern had formed before the upper ones.
While this cavern was taller than the others, it wasn’t as long. Where it ended, one could imagine that the flow had reached a bottle-neck and slowed, then eventually hardened and sealed off this edge.
She told all of us to turn off our flashlights. We stood in the dark for a solid minute, then she turned on some lights in the cave and pointed out the glowing white spots on the walls and ceiling. She said those spots were always there, we just couldn’t see them until our eyes had acclimated to the dark. We were surprised to find that there were lights — having us use flashlights must have been for more of a real “cave” experience.
This concluded the tour, and we trudged up the four sets of staircases to the entrance.
When the tour concluded, our guide admitted it was her first day on the job and apologized for not giving a good tour. Ah, that explained why she seemed a bit stiff. We assured her she had done a great job. Our assessment was that in some ways this tours was similar to Raufarhólshellir, such as the explanation of the geology, and different in other ways, such as explaining the folklore.
Unfortunately, the ticket kiosk didn’t have a restroom, so we had to drive to the visitor’s center, which was between Londrangar Cliffs and the kiosk.
There was also a lighthouse and adjacent structures.
It looked like the visitor’s center had a neat little museum, but it was starting to get late and we had a long drive back, so we didn’t linger. We continued on the main road, at first going north, then west as the road rounded the northern tip of the peninsula. It was a scenic drive. Here were some shots along the way. The glacier.
The glacier again, but taken a bit farther west so more of the mountains were visible.
Near the ocean we passed a giant rock with a staircase. This was apparently a fabulous viewpoint. We were tempted to stop, but then we remembered we needed to keep moving.
Yet another view of the mountains. There was stretch where we saw a lot of lava rock formations on the ground near the road.
On the edge of the national park, there was a small, adorable town. This was the maritime museum in town. We didn’t stop.
Beyond the town, there was a long stretch of mostly farmland with stunning view of the mountains and glimpses of the ocean. We also passed some rivers and lakes.
We came to a cute fishing village and decided to stop here to get some food… to be continued…
