Categories: News

New Geek Destination: Klingon Cave Tours

Since “Star Trek: The Experience” is no longer open, here’s the next best thing. A company is getting ready to provide self-guided tours of the Jenolan Caves west of Sydney, Australia, and one of the languages soon available for the tours is Klingon. Yes, it is a fictional, completely fabricated Star Trek language, but I’m guessing there will be some takers on this. Why Klingon?

Well, if you have watched Star Trek you may recognize the name Jenolan as one of the ships featured in the episode of The Next Generation where Scotty (from the original series) appeared. The only Klingon in that episode was Worf, and Scotty stayed pretty clear of him (still jumpy from that Tribble incident, no doubt). So there’s not a clear Klingon connection, but obviously there’s some fan love involved.

Australia’s ABC reports that earlier this month two Klingon scholars (yes, really!) from the United States flew to Australia to tour the caves and finalize the translation of a self-guided tour. They have recorded it at a Sydney studio and the commentary will be available sometime in August on a digital audio device.

Map showing the location of the Jenolan Caves in western Australia. Credit: ABC

The Jenolan Caves are the world’s oldest dated limestone cave system. And if you aren’t fluent in Klingon, the tours will also be available in 10 other more commonly-spoken languages.

And can anyone read the Klingon words in the top image?

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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