Of course no geology course would be complete without learning about volcanoes. I knew the concept behind flood basalts from studying them—what no textbook can show you though is any scale. The Craters of the Moon is vast! You can easily stand on the edge of the crater a look out as far as you can see and see nothing but black lava.

Despite my GCSEs and A-Levels, I still found myself unable to explain the features we saw, fortunately there we frequent boards explaining in layman’s terms (and a jolly good they were as well) the processes that formed it.

One thing I did know from my lessons though (I’m glad four years counted for something!) was the difference between the smooth Pahoehoe (its a Hawaiian word) lava that we actually got to walk on and the sharp a’a (blame the Hawaiians for that word as well) lava that would have mangled my brand new walking boots if I was to attempt to walk on.

Too interesting in fact, as we all ended up rather sunburnt and dehydrated. Well, at least we won't make the mistake of walking miles and miles over an old lava flow with no water again.

Feed the bears