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.
There’s not a better day trip in the Faroes than a visit to Mykines. Continue beyond the airport on Vágar Island to the port of Sørvágar. A ferry shuttles across to the one settlement on the island, the 17km trip takes about 40 minutes and costs about US$10. I was o...
I’m staying in the very pleasant (and busy too) Gjáagarður guest house/youth hostel in Gjógv. It’s a very pretty little village, but that’s no feat … every village in the Faroes is very pretty. They all look like the toy villages in some kid’s model railway, neat li...
In London on 2 June I went along to the launch of the 2009 Global Peace Index. With expert assistance from the Economist Intelligence the index uses 23 factors to calculate how peaceful a country is – that includes its own internal peace, but also the danger the count...
With a name that sounds like it came from Stalinist Russia it’s hardly surprising that Homeland Security are not the favourite US government department. They look after immigration so for overseas visitors they’re the first taste of US bureaucracy. They don’t have a g...
We’ve had a run of rock concerts for some of our favourite – ageing I must admit – rock stars. In late January we saw Leonard Cohen perform in an open-air concert at a winery outside Melbourne. All the reviews all round the world have been saying how good he is – and ...
My final stop in my brief circuit of Costa Rica was at another beach spot. I’d taken the high speed boat that rockets across from the beach at Montezuma to a beach a few km north of Jaco. We encountered a school of dolphins half way across. From there I continued...
I spent a couple of days at the Nicoya Peninsula beach town of Montezuma. Well this is familiar I thought as soon as I arrived – Kuta (Bali) in 1975, Goa (India) in 1977, Hikkaduwa (Sri Lanka) in 1979 and Phuket (Thailand) in 1981 - all had the same feel as Montez...
My short circuit of Costa Rica started in San José from where I took a bus to La Fortuna. Departing the San Carlos bus station in San José La Fortuna stands a few km north of the active Arenal Volcano and – hardly surprisingly – most of the activity is centred...
Last month London’s mayor Boris Johnson announced his intention to make London an electric car city with 100,000 electric cars in the city, about 5% of London’s two million cars. Installing 25,000 charging points for electric cars by 2015 would help to meet that targe...
Why has it taken me until 2009 to finally visit Costa Rica? It’s been our best selling guidebook in the Americas for years and yet for some reason I’ve never been here. Never mind, I’m sitting watching a full moon over the sea at Montezuma and contemplating that I was...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013