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.
It’s an unexciting drive from Chicago to Des Moines but dinner certainly makes up for any boredom en route. We go to Spaghetti Works, a popular Des Moines restaurant, get a table outside, order food and a bottle of wine and then Maureen and I go inside to sample the s...
What a great city this is. It’s clear we could spend the rest of our time right here, so instead we set out to do what we can in just one day. What we can starts, for Maureen and I, with a jog along Lake Michigan. For Kieran it means getting a Chicago Bulls top. Check...
Motown has one final attraction we can’t ignore and that, of course, is Hitsville USA, the Motown Museum. Tamla Motown records shifted to Los Angeles in 1972 but kept their first Detroit office and recording studio. The company’s extraordinarily rapid growth is quite ...
There’s some sort of beautician’s convention going on at our hotel and half the people eating breakfast look as if they’ve spent two hours perfecting their hair and makeup, earnest conversations about manicures waft through the air. It feels like the Douglas Adams’ sp...
The rain pauses for my morning run, up beyond the Horseshoe Falls to have a look at an old scow which broke loose from its towboat and floated down towards the falls with two men on board. A stone’s throw from the brink it ran aground and the two men spent a sleepless...
I’m beginning to believe there is some sort of curse of the Wheelers that ensures whenever we visit notable waterfalls not only does water fall over the fall it also falls from the sky. A few years ago we visited Africa’s Niagara, the Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe/Za...
The new brake linings arrive around noon but it’s 4 pm by the time they’re fitted and we finally escape. This repair costs $130 so our en route repair costs are still less than $200. We drive straight through to Niagara Falls, find a motel and go out to eat. Just sout...
It’s not the wheel bearing I quickly decide in the morning. Once everything has cooled down the wheel is turning smoothly again. The cause is more likely a locking front brake and the reason for that is probably because I forgot my California Cadillac expert’s warning...
We roll south out of Massachusetts into Connecticut and then turn west into New York state, cross the Hudson River and stop for lunch in that centre for peace and love, Woodstock. Twenty five years on from the rockfest that made it famous Woodstock is doing just fine ...
Provincetown on Cape Cod was our real furthermost east starting point but since we finished trip 1 at Concord this feels like the start of trip 2. Buying a cooler (trip 2 is shaping up to be much warmer than trip 1) is the first order of the day and that is followed ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013