Day 10 in Iceland was a pretty full day. We planned to spend the day on the peninsula just north of Reykjavik and see as much as we had time to see.
It wouldn't be Iceland without the road side "wildlife" sightings.
Our first stop was at this massive crevice carved out by a small stream. Lava rock is very soft and porous, hence it doesn't take much to erode it away.
Here's Josh in the crevice with the small stream. Seeing how there was a glacier at the top of the mountain I imagine that in earlier spring there might have been more flow, but it's amazing to think about what a little water can do.
Next we spent a few hours exploring the shore line, which was guarded by the spirit of this guy... legend has it that he was a mighty man who moved up into the mountains, where he became a sort of spirit that protected the area.
The shore line was filled with caves, caverns, arches, and finger like protrusions from the ocean. It was pretty neat to see, especially as we noticed all the basalt columns and the story they tell about the lava flows that poured into the ocean hear at one time.
Another black beach.
We spent a good chunk of time watching the waves pound against the shore.
The last stop of our day was a lava cave tour. We were their last tour of the day, so it was just Josh and I with the tour guide, and this guy knew his stuff. Lava caves (or lava tunnels) are created by lava cooling at different rates. The surface would harden, as would the walls of the tunnel, but the lave in the middle was still hot and flowing fast, until somewhere upstream there would be a cave in and cut off the hot lava supply, leaving the hot lave to flow out of the cave and resulting in an empty space. Apparently there are caves and tunnels like these all over the place, but they can only be found once part of one caves in from the surface. This particular lave cave was composed of two lava tunnels. A newer tunnel, while being formed, broke through into an older tunnel beneath and drained into and out of it.
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