By the time Tony co-founded Lonely Planet Publications in 1973, he already had the travel bug. And ever since, travel and discovery have been at the heart of his life and career.
Melbourne has a new subway line – the Metro Tunnel – running through five new stations and currently having a soft opening, before the schedule launches full tilt on 1 February 2026. The new Parkville Station will probably be the most useful new station, since it’s at the University of Melbourne which badly needed a handy Metro station.
▲ The Town Hall Station
The two new central city stations might look slightly redundant since the Town Hall Station is only a couple of hundred metres from Flinders St Station and the State Library Station is right beside the Melbourne Central Station. In fact you might find it easier to enter the State Library Station from Melbourne Central rather than from its own entrance. The Metro Tunnel line, however, runs in a different direction than the other lines through Flinders St and Melbourne Central.
Unfortunately to use the new line you still need the horrible old Myki Card. Transport Victoria have announced that they are introducing ‘tap and go’ technology to Melbourne. Tomorrow? No, they are testing it in 2026 and at some point in the future you’ll actually be able to use it. But didn’t they start testing it in 2023 at some stations? Well yes they did, but clearly three years of testing wasn’t enough, there’s more testing to be rolled out in 2026
◄ My hated Myki Card
Hasn’t anybody asked them about this before? Well yes, for one person I asked Transport Victoria why we couldn’t use contactless cards in Melbourne when London introduced the technology in 2014. So that’s 10 years ago.
And I did get an answer, ‘we’re working on it and hope to introduce it soon.’ Which in Melbourne seems to be in 10 years time. So for over 10 years I’ve been able to use my Australian ANZ credit card to pay for public transport in London, England. But not in Melbourne, Australia. Absurd isn’t it?
Once upon a time Melbourne was a regular ‘most liveable city in the world’ title holder. How could you be a ‘most liveable city’ and at the same time operate the world’s most-visitor-unfriendly-travel-card? I suggested that in 2013 and 13 years later my opinion hasn’t changed. Never mind, the new Metro Tunnel Line reportedly took lots of lessons from London’s very popular Elizabeth Line. In London I often use the Elizabeth Line even if it means travelling a bit further because it’s so fast and convenient. Perhaps Melbourne can also learn from London how to get rid of the Myki Card.
▲ The Elizabeth Line at Bond St.in London
Since it opened in 2022 the Elizabeth Line quickly became the busiest railway line in the UK although technically it’s not part of the London Underground network. It runs out to Heathrow Airport – but so does the Piccadilly Line – and even further to Reading. It’s popular and has won architectural awards as well as being so busy. Check my August 2024 posting about riding the London Tube.
I visited Bulgaria twice in recent years and enjoyed both visits so much that I recently returned, with Maureen and a group of friends. We flew in to Sofia with Wizz Air from London, travelled by land between the two cities – regrettably by minibus rather than train –...
I’ve certainly had some travel delays and diversions this year, by sea, by rail and by air, troubles have popped up for every means of travel. A trans-Pacific cruise (yes, me on a cruise ship!) from Yokohama in Japan to Seattle in the USA got delayed and diverted, ...
It’s a British National Trail, the only one to follow a river and definitely a river worth following. From its source west of Oxford it runs for 184 miles (294km) through the Cotswolds, to Oxford and on past iconic English names like Abingdon and Windsor and then thro...
Milan was the end of my Madrid, Barcelona, Gent, Tarn River, Cassis, Monaco, Genoa European circuit, most of my European travel by train. I flew back to London with ITA, the latest out-of-bankruptcy recreation of Alitalia, Italy’s multi-bankrupted airline. Never have ...
I heard plenty of bear stories on my recent travels in Alaska and Montana – you’re chased up a tree by a bear, how do you know if it’s a black bear or a brown bear? If the bear climbs up the tree after you in order to kill you it’s a black bear. If the bear just stays...
▲ A jumble of Lego I’ve certainly been catching up with art in London, starting with the Ai Weiwei Making Sense exhibit at the Design Museum in Kensington – too late if you haven’t already seen it, it’s closed. There’s a fascinating linkage between huge numbers of ...
I started in Madrid and Barcelona, celebrating Lonely Planet’s 50th birthday for GeoPlaneta who publish LP guides in Spanish. Then it was Gent in Belgium for a bookshop talk with Atlas & Zanzibar. A canoe trip on the Tarn River in the south of France was followed ...
My architect neighbour Barry Munday had recently gone on an architectural tour of the city and I decided to make it a stepping stone from my Tarn River Canoeing trip – Cassis – Monaco – Genoa – to meeting Maureen for an operatic excursion in Milan. Things didn’t start...
After my Tarn River canoeing trip I had four nights before meeting Maureen – for an operatic excursion – in Milan. I spent two nights in Cassis and the plan was a night in Monaco followed by a night in Genoa, all connected by train. Everything soon went wrong. . Fir...
A classic Provençal fishing port, a little east of Marseille, from my Tarn River canoeing trip I travelled south to Montpellier, then east past Marseille and the Parc national des Calanques to Cassis. The series of spectaular gorges known as calanques slash the coastl...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013