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.
Brian Thacker has written a bunch of books (check his website for the full story) and is currently working on a new one, following my original trail around Southeast Asia. It’s been 34 years since Maureen and I spent a year exploring the region to write the very f...
It’s got to be the ultimate tourist trip, blasting off on a Russian Soyuz up to the International Space Station for a couple of weeks of circling the earth every 93 minutes. Want to go? Well call Space Adventures for your booking, a ticket is US$30 million plus and yo...
Northern Tip I spent a week travelling around Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula, the northern tip of Canada’s island province. Some highlights: L’Anse aux Meadows Vikings ▼ L’Anse aux Meadows Right at the northern tip of the northern tip is the site of t...
Moose from my car window ▼ Our Canada book sums up the Newfoundland moose situation: ‘Moose are vegetarians, eating about 22kg of twigs and shrubs a day. Newfoundlanders are not vegetarians, eating about 22,000 moose a year.’ I took this moose photograph after I’d ...
St Pierre and where? OK it’s another of those little corners of France, secreted away in odd corners around the world, supported by lots of euros sent over from Paris, speaking French and existing in another entirely parallel universe. I was a little bit concerned ...
Some of the best travel experiences are wildlife encounters and I’ve been lucky enough to have some classic ones – rhinos in Nepal, elephants in Africa, the Komodo dragons, turtles hatching out at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, an amazing gorilla encounter ...
The Melbourne Solar System project launches on Sunday 21 September. It’s a 1:1 billion scale model of our Solar System, stretching along the Melbourne bayside from the Sun by St Kilda Marina to lonely Pluto, 5.9km away beyond Port Melbourne. The project has bee...
It’s taken a while to arrive in the UK market, but it will be in UK bookshops this week. The publisher is Crimson and it retails for £9.99. Once While Travelling is a combination of autobiography, travel story and business book. It kicks off with how Maure...
Sometimes missing your flight (or more accurately having Virgin Blue Airlines cancel it) can lead to an interesting change of plans. Last month I was talking about adventure travel at the Byron Bay Writers Festival first thing in the morning and then, in late aftern...
The Georgian town of Gori, not far west of the capital Tbilisi, has been heavily in the news these last few days after the Russian attacks on the breakaway province of South Ossetia also targeted Gori. I spent a day in Gori last September. The town’s grey Soviet-era a...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013