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.
Fortress Australia has been much in the news of late, here in Australia and elsewhere in the world. We’ve slammed the doors shut and nobody is allowed in or out, as the BBC reports. Well not quite. While Joe Bloggs – that hypothetical Mr Everyman – and his partner Jan...
The Australian government’s Covid Safe App has been one of the more amusing failures (we need some amusement) from the pandemic. Of course the government has been extremely reluctant to admit how much it cost and how well it has worked, but as of 30 April 2021 it appe...
Locked down in Melbourne I’ve been pedaling my bicycle around and thinking about places with – for me – a Melbourne history. I’ve lived in Melbourne for far too long, a lot of those years in Richmond, a ‘suburb’ which went from Struggletown – I’m reading that book at ...
Nobody has died – yet – but the hijack of Ryanair flight 4978 was certainly a shocker. Belarus is ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’ and Alexander Lukashenko, the brutal leader, looks precisely like what he is: a Soviet era thug. The best you can say is that he didn’t shoot...
◄ Daphne Mayo When I visited Adelaide earlier this year and saw the works of Clarice Beckett at her exhibit in the Art Gallery of South Australia I commented – like assorted other visitors – that it was remarkable she was so unrecognized during her life. Well that’...
My recent Australian travels featured the climb up Mt Kosciuszko, visits to three ‘big cities,’ Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane, stops at smaller centres, the Hawkesbury River, Byron Bay & Tweed Heads, Longreach and Winton, the train trip from Brisbane to Longreach ...
From Longreach I jumped in a rent-a-car and continued west to Winton, way out west. From Winton if you continue further west you reach Boulia and then you’re out of Queensland and into the Northern Territory. ▲ As you approach Winton there are signs letting you kno...
▲ Signs around Winton claim that you’re in Australia’s dinosaur capital. ▲ Part of that claim can be credited to the Lark Quarry ‘dinosaur stampede’ site. A modern building protects the site and features a café and a small theatre for introductory talks before visi...
▲ Longreach Train Station – my arrival point in the outback town after the 26 hour train trip from Brisbane ◄ Across the road from the train station is this marker for the Tropic of Capricon, a reminder that Longreach straddles the line where the ‘Temperate Zone’ t...
The active Nyiragongo Volcano overlooking the town of Goma, close to the border of Congo DRC and Rwanda has been erupting. I climbed the volcano back in 2011 and visited the gorillas in the nearby Virunga National Park. ▲ The eruption reports indicated that the ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013