Our morning in the Golden Circle🇮🇸

First day of Icelandic Summer🌼

First stop: The Lava Tunnel, also known as The Raufarhólshellir Lava Tube. Wow wow wow wow wow! Like I mentioned in a prior post, this lava tube sits on private property and they only give guided tours. Many years ago there was an incident where 3 girls got trapped. They were hiking to the end of the tunnel when their cell phone batteries wore out. You see, light is critical because once you get deep within the cave, it’s pitch black. Any extended amount of time in pitch blackness can cause Cave Blindness! These girls forgot an extra light source and had to be rescued. During the tour, the guide turned off all the lights and it was indeed dark! Other senses were heightened and we could hear the drip drip drip of the melting ice.

Lava tube tour – we will end up 100 feet under ground
We wore our helmets with lights. Crampons and hiking poles were options but since it’s no longer “winter” the ice is melting.
The ice is slowly melting for the summer months.
It’s never the same cave!
About 5200 years ago, this cave was formed as a lava tube during the Leitahraun eruption 🌋
These are natural skylights (holes in the cave) and typically are how the tubes are found—someone or an animal falls in!
So many different types of rocks and minerals—lava, iron, sulphur and even a living thing which is white bacteria. It’s called Cave Bacteria and it isn’t found elsewhere. They believe that the Cave Bacteria may be found on Mars so scientists have been studying it.

The tunnel is 4,500 feet long (900 meters) and up to 30 meters wide. We did the walking tour but you can also do the more strenuous tour where you go beyond where we stopped, and climb your way to the end.

There are no echoes in lava tunnels because it’s a porous rock that absorbs the sound. Our guide told us that people have weddings here. In addition, there was a movie premiere for Descent—a horror flick that took place in a cave. 🫣

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