“A major eruption could happen literally any day now; it’s about 50-60 years overdue.” Paulina Anna, a geologist at the aptly-named Lava Centre in Hvolsvöllur, on Iceland’s southern coast, is matter-of-factly replying to my question about when the country’s most dangerous volcano, Katla, might go off.

Her last eruption – Katla is one of only two volcanoes here with a female name, after a mythical sorceress – was in 1918. She dislodged flood water equivalent to the world’s four biggest rivers combined, as lava and rocky debris melted the thick ice cap that had covered the crater since her previous eruption in 1860. There was significant damage to nearby property and farmland.

Throughout my five-day trip following the Volcanic Way, developed last year, I find most experts I speak to united

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