For those of you who weren’t aware, Iceland is a pretty hot place… If you dig deep enough at least. Beneath the islands icy exterior lurks a sea of lava, just waiting to erupt at any moment from one of the countries magnificent volcanos. Need proof? Climb through some of the caves formed by these lava streams and see where hot magma has left it’s tracks. I decided to see for myself on a caving tour through the Leiðarendi lave tubes.

Hungover and lacking sleep, my friend Ren and I were picked up from Reykjavik by our lovely local guide. After a gorgeous drive through the lave fields just outside of Reykjavik, we were delivered at a car park and given helmets, torches and gloves. Our guide told us there were caves about an hours hike away. But we weren’t going to those caves. Leiðarendi cave was only 5 minutes away.

We climbed through the narrow entrance to the cave and our eyes adjusted to the darkness. We switched on our torches and began to walk through the uneven surface through the magnificent hall of the cave. The first chamber of the cave is spacious and I began to think that the tour would just be an easy underground stroll… I was wrong.

Soon the walls crept in, helmets began to to make contact with the cave roof  if you didn’t bend down low enough and the little voice in my head had to be reminded that I’m not claustrophobic (fortunately).

During the adventure through the cave we admired the ancient flow lines of lava, stalagmites (some missing the top assumably due to tourists snapping off some ‘natural’ souvenirs to take home), and the remains of one unfortunate ancient sheep, who decided to do his own caving tour and forgot the way out (do not follow his mistake folks, stick to the guided tours). We also took some time to appreciate the rock carvings of the introduced species of tourists from 2013.

At one point during the tour, our guide asked everyone to turn off their torches. Have you ever experienced total darkness? It’s scarily peaceful and serene but seriously makes you appreciate your sight.

Eventually there was some serious caving involved and crawling was necessary. If I was aware the tour would be a bit physically demanding I may have gone to bed earlier the night before, but I must admit I am glad we had the opportunity to experience some more exciting caving.

The tour was a great way to see some of the magnificent evidence of Iceland’s hot, hot underground scene and it was the perfect way to spend a rainy day sightseeing. I did the tour with Extreme Iceland and would recommend them to anyone heading to the country.

Due to the lack of magma flowing through the caves, it isn’t actually such a hot underground place so dress warmly and tread carefully.

Extreme Iceland run their ‘Volacanic Veins‘ tour every day during summer.