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.
▲internet cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam Poste restantes, those old fashioned gathering places where travellers congregated to collect their mail, may have had their charm, but their modern replacement, the internet café, also have...
This slim volume theorises that there’s no longer just a small rich world (the ‘north’) and a big poor one (the ‘south’). The small rich world is still there, but now there’s also a big middle one which has escaped from ‘poor’ and is heading towards ‘rich.’ Down at th...
It’s me, age 4 or 5, when I was living in Karachi and clearly showing an early interest in aviation and travel. I’ve returned to Pakistan a number of times over the years and always found it interesting. My most recent visit was a March 2006 visit to the scene of the ...
It’s easy to think of the French architect Gustave Eiffel (born 1832, died 1923) as a one-hit wonder, we can all immediately name the Eiffel Tower as his great achievement, but a second or third Eiffel construction? In fact Eiffel architecture is found in many count...
Car One I’ve joined the environmentally sensitive cars group and bought a Toyota Prius. The last 300km, all of it ‘around town’, I’ve been averaging 5.0 litres per 100km. That’s 56 mpg (in Britain) or 47 mpg (in the US). Car Two And I’m driving my computer with...
Unleashing movie monsters on cities is a sure fire crowd pleaser (think New York City and King Kong), but no monster has destroyed as many cities to as much general acclaim as the great Japanese movie monster Godzilla. In fact having your city destroyed by Godzilla is...
‘It is a great guide book, but it should not be the basis of an occupation.’ That’s a quote from former American ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was given the job of helping to reconstruct Iraq, about the role our Middle East guidebook played in the US occupation. ...
To the west of Georgia is the Black Sea, head east and you come to Azerbaijan and then the Caspian Sea, head south and you arrive in Turkey to the south-east or Armenia to the south-west. Or head north and you’ve got Russia. We won’t talk about that, the Georgians sti...
Free bikes have been a city dream from way back. ‘White bicycles’ were tried in England in the hippy ‘60s, but they were all soon stolen. A few years ago I tried a more modern incarnation in Copenhagen (make them ugly, instantly recognisable and equip them with strong...
Well we flew in to his airport in Ulaanbaator anyway (Last year I flew in to the Mother Teresa International Airport in Tirana in Albania). Maureen and I spent two weeks in Mongolia in August, riding in old Russian jeeps and flying in old Russian helicopters, staying ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013