September 1 - Lofthellir Ice Cave

The Lonely Planet guidebook warned that the area around Lake Mývatn are overrun by "plague-like, maddening" swarms of midges in mid- to late-summer, and it did not exaggerate. As soon as you step outside thousands of the bastards descend on you, getting into your hair, eyes, nose, etc. Fortunately, they neither bite nor sting so really they are just a nuisance, but it put us off doing any of the numerous hikes or walks around the area. Instead, we escaped the midges on a tour underground into another lava tube, this time the Lofthellir cave for its unique "ice lava".

(An aside: as we drove to the cave our guide explained there were two rules:

• Rule 1: Don't break anything: (a) yourself; (b) your equipment; or (c) anything in the cave.

• Rule 2: Don't be stupid.

He explained that Rule 2 was universal and could be used anywhere, for our adventure today breaking Rule 1 would almost always result in also breaking Rule 1. Personally, I think Rule 2 should be reordered as Rule 1.)

Getting into the cave was a claustrophobic experience, reminiscent of the plughole cave tour many years ago in Australia's Blue Mountains.

Inside we were rewarded with a strange, spooky, and beautiful world of ice stalactites and stalagmites that take decades to form.

It was very cool.

Literally.

(And the real definition of "literally"; not the "we broke English" definition.)

The guide managed a unique effect by rigging all the spare headlamps up to chunks of ice and having us turn off our headlamps for an eerie Christmas light scene.

Finally, on the way out we got to try our hand at the newest extreme sport, "sideways repelling": we had to kick off the wall to the right while holding the rope then slide down the ice sheet until we were brought back against the wall. (Fun but hard to photograph in the darkness.)

The guide scored us all and I got 8/10; Jessica only got 7.5/10. Just sayin'.