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.
Australia’s Great Ocean Walk only opened for business in late December 2005. So far only a handful of walkers have set out along this spectacular coastal walk. On the last two days of January 2006 I was one of them. The walk stretches for 96km from Apollo Bay to The T...
France comes to Victoria I spent Australia Day – 26 January – at the small Victorian gold rush town of St Arnaud. So how did this town, 250km (150 miles) from Melbourne, end up with a French name? Well it was originally named New Bendigo, after the larger gold rush t...
Signs in 'Engrish' are found in great numbers in both Japan and China. They are always interesting and I found quite a few when I travelled through China in May 2005. This was one of my favourites, instructions for leaving your bag with the security staff at a shopp...
Mobile (cell) phone coverage in Asia and Africa, sim cards and drug dealers, killer insect repellent and airport baggage handling collapse - guess the airport? . Mobile Phones I use an extremely battered old Motorola mobile (cell) phone. It doesn’t take photograp...
Travelling to the Outer Reaches of the Solar System Over two weekends in December Christopher Lansell and Ed Redman, two young Melbourne residents, replicated the Sun and the nine planets of the Solar System along the city’s bayside. At a scale of one billion to one....
Restaurants Some interesting restaurants from the past 12 months. M on the Bund – Shanghai, China In April 2005 I set out to travel by land from Singapore to Shanghai and before I started I decided I was going to mark the end of the trip by dining at M on the...
Hardly surprisingly I read a lot of travel or travel related books, some recent titles 1. Dictators’ Homes (Dictator Style in the USA) – Peter York Amazon USA - Amazon UK Unfortunately the idea – let’s do an Architectural Digest tour of assorted dictators’ and d...
Things I worry about from old growth forest destruction in the Australian state of Tasmania to what Amnesty International has rightly described as ‘a human rights scandal’ in, where else, Guantanamo Bay. Marshalls Shoot & Kill Passenger US Newspaper headline 8...
Tuesday 22 November Day 18 – Timbuktu to Marrakech, Morocco There’s time for a quick tour of Timbuktu in the morning – the Dyingerey Ber Mosque (which we can enter), the Sankore Mosque (which we can’t), a couple of the early European visitors’ houses, the small muse...
Thursday 17 November Day 13 – Cotonou to Elmina, Gold Coast, Ghana Ganvie, just outside Cotonou, is remarkably like Inle Lake in Burma, with its houses, fields, life all out on the water. The big difference is that Ganvie is very touristy, particularly when you’re i...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013