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.
Monday 7 November Day 3 – Cape Town to Etosha National Park, Namibia Our aircraft rolled out of the Convair factory in the USA back in 1953 with twin piston engines. It’s clearly been well looked after over the years and along the way the piston engines have been ch...
Saturday 5 November Day 1 – Melbourne, Australia to Cape Town, South Africa ‘We’re going to try to get out of here before that thunderstorm arrives at the airport,’ the pilot announces. It was easy to tell which thunderstorm he was talking about, jagged spears of...
Many years ago someone said that the photos in Lonely Planet guides ‘looked like they’d been taken by the author with his mother’s Instamatic.’ Back then a lot of the photos may have been mine, but I certainly didn’t use my mom’s camera. Nobody makes jokes about ou...
I put together four playlists for The Rough Guide Book of Playlists and this is the Lonely Planet one. See Books for Other Publishers for more about the book. Lots of businesses seem to have a soundtrack, this is Lonely Planet’s, including the Joe Cocker number whi...
1. While your father is alive, make as many friends as you can; while your horse is alive, visit as many lands as you can. Mongolian proverb 2. You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have a football team, or some nuclear...
In November I’m joining a trip organised by Zegrahm Expeditions using a charted aircraft to hop up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town to Casablanca. I’m not big on groups but this looks like an intriguing way to cover some territory where I’m a total beginner. It...
At last count I’ve written or contributed substantially to more than 30 Lonely Planet books. Of course with some of them I may have only been one of a team of writers while others may have been all mine once upon a time (Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Burma, Papua...
I've contributed to a number of books for other publishers as well as Once While Travelling, the recently published 'Lonely Planet Story' with Penguin/Viking Australia: Once While Travelling – the Lonely Planet Story Buy this book So why didn’t Lonely Planet publ...
I sleep in a lot of hotels, there were about 90 different ones in the last year – as well as some nights in tents, a few nights in trains and boats and rather too many nights on aircraft. I kicked off this hotel list with 14 hotels I found particularly interesting ove...
I spent a week in Japan in September 2005, speaking about sustainable tourism at the Nagoya World Fair, visiting Minkaku and its associated National Museum of Ethnology near Osaka and dropping in to Tokyo. The National Museum of Ethnology in Sizenbunkaen Park outsi...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013