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.
Last week I was in Macau speaking at a hotel conference, most of the conference was numbers and business, but my talk was light relief, hotels I’ve loved and hated, whether they were cheap – the Chhaya Hotel in Battambang, Cambodia in 2005 was US$4 and just fine. Cli...
No matter how many times you go there there’s always something new. On my way to and from Macau last week I had three nights in Hong Kong – on Lamma Island, in Central and in Kowloon. Of course one thing never seems to change in Hong Kong, the Star Ferry still shuttle...
Last week I was listening to Tim Flannery as the ‘curator’ of the Deakins Lectures, a series of 10 lectures, addresses and discussions on the subject of climate change. Tim is a man of many hats from running the South Australian Museum to being Australian of the year ...
Last week in Melbourne, Australia I went to a series of lectures, discussions and Q&A sessions on climate change. Presented as the 2010 instalment of the Deakins Lectures, named after Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, the programme took place under...
The 2010 Global Peace Index has been released and the most peaceful country in the world? No change from last year, it’s New Zealand followed by Iceland. The other four Scandinavian countries also make it into the top 10. The list now includes 149 countries, 99% of th...
My last travel blog was on big trees – the giant tingle and karri trees of Western Australia – both native trees. This time it’s an ‘exotic’ (an introduced species), 281 elm trees at Bacchus Marsh in Victoria, a country town about 60km west of Melbourne, towards Adela...
Spicks & Specks is an interesting rock music quiz program on Australia’s ABC network and last Wednesday night one of the questions was what musical instrument did Léon Theremin invent? Why the theremin of course. Now I knew that because back in 2003 I spoke – h...
I’ve been catching a lot of events at the Wheeler Centre in recent weeks and I’ll certainly be there for the Deakin Lectures starting on Sunday 6 June. Named after Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, they’re an annual series of lectures and discussions o...
Bike share systems are being rolled out in more and more major cities around the world. ‘White bicycles’ were tried in England in the hippy ‘60s, but they were all soon stolen. Years ago I tried a more modern incarnation in Copenhagen (make them ugly, instantly reco...
Transiting Buenos Aires recently I encountered this sign in the immigration area at the air- port. Canad- ians were up for a single entry fee of US$70 if they wanted to enter Argen- tina. For Aus- tralians it was US$100, but not single entry, pre- sumably once they’d ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013