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.
Earlier this year I was fortunate to meet a man whom I admire enormously – Mo Ibrahim. Born in Sudan he followed a BSc at the University of Alexandria in Egypt with an MSc and then a PhD in the UK and a career in mobile technology culminated with setting up his own Af...
▲ This morning I finally got around to riding the London Eye, London’s iconic giant ferris wheel, just downriver from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. With a diameter of 135metres it’s big, but not the biggest of the world’s giant ferris wheels. The London Ey...
London taxis Recently I spent ‘60’ for taxis between airport and city in these three cities, US$60 in New York, A$60 (about US$55) in Melbourne and £60 (about US$97) in London. What did I get for my money? In Melbourne US$55 took me 23km from my home on the f...
It hardly seems the name for a glamorous destination, but in New York in 2009 you can hardly get more hip than the Meat Packing District. Sandwiched between Chelsea and Greenwich Village on Manhattan’s Lower West Side as the old meat slaughterhouses shifted out they w...
Me, my Cadillac & Route 66 For some people sporting events are a great reason to travel – seeing the world becomes an adjunct to catching up with your favourite football team. And for others if you’re in the country you might as well catch an event – you’re d...
Travelling from Melbourne to London earlier this week Maureen and I stopped off in Bali for a few days and I was reminded all over again why I like Bali – and Indonesia – so much: Offerings at the door of a shop on Monkey Forest Rd in Ubud. Because these daily of...
My recent trip to the Kimberley highlighted just what a wonderful stretch of wilderness the world has in the Kimberley region. Flying across the Kimberley at low altitude in a light aircraft was like a slide show of wonderful views. Then my spell at the Kimberley Coas...
We all know the peace symbol – which actually started life as the semaphore symbols for the letters N and D since it stood for Nuclear Disarmament. From there it became the symbol of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Today we’re down from 70,000 n...
My recent Flying Across the Kimberley blog took me to the Kimberley Coastal Camp on the coast of Admiralty Gulf. Check it on Google Earth, it’s about as remote as you can get: S 14º 34.788 E 125º 54.778 To get there we had that two hour flight in a Cessna 210 l...
I’ve recently worked with Dell Computers on the Take Your Own Path campaign, basically saying I am very tough on laptops and my Dell laptop has survived remarkably well. The campaign has already launched in the US and will follow in the UK soon. The Minaret o...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013