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.
The Hippie Trail When Maureen and I stopped in Marrakech on our little England to Africa drive in February 2007 I spent some time with German film-maker Maren Niemeyer. There will be a documentary on German and French television later this year on the ‘hippie trail’ ...
I ended 2006 and started 2007 on Australia’s iconic bushwalk, a 60 to 80km (depending where you finish up) stroll through central Tasmania with fantastic scenery and a smorgasbord selection of lakes, rivers, forests, plains, waterfalls and mountains peaks. There are s...
I’ve got a new book coming out in April 2007 to be titled Bad Lands and I’ll be talking more about it in forthcoming updates to this blog. My trips to Afghanistan, Albania and Iraq – all featured in the ‘Travel Blogs’ part of my site – contributed to that book. When i...
Grey, gloomy, pouring rain. It was good English walking weather when Maureen and I along with three other friends set out from St Bees to cross England. I try to make at least one long walk every year and this year’s stroll was the Wainwright Way, crossing England fro...
I’m certainly not going to say that visiting Afghanistan is safe and the south of the country (ie Kandahar) is definitely unsafe, although nothing like Iraq. In my two weeks in the country (late May 2006) I travelled very widely, had a great time and had no safety pro...
I’ve been back on the hippy trail, revisiting those places Maureen and I travelled through on the very first Lonely Planet trip. Except no way did I plan to go to Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan, I stuck strictly to the safer regions. But this time I did get to B...
My visit to Afghanistan has been such smooth sailing it’s almost inevitable that things should go astray right at the end. On my final full day I’d planned to visit two museums, drop in at the British Embassy and go up to one of the hills overlooking the town for the ...
My third and final excursion from Kabul is up to Mazar-i-Sharif, the northern centre close to the border with the northern ‘stans’ which were once part of the USSR. Back in 1972 Maureen and I drove through Afghanistan via Herat, Kandahar and Kabul so we never went to ...
Day 6 was used up getting back to Kabul, flying in Afghanistan is not exactly straightforward, there’s a lot of uncertainty and messing around before you get in the air. Once you’re flying the views are fantastic and for the first 20 minutes we followed the road to Ja...
It’s a 5 am start on the trip to the Minaret of Jam, which means we see the sun rise half an hour down the road. The early departure is a good idea, the 289km trip takes nearly 15 hours on consistently rough roads. There’s plenty to see along the way, a wide flat vall...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013