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.
▲ Locked down in Australia I’ve been going through my old photo collections – like my recent posting on photos of statues. I came across this one that a motorcycle racing friend took in England in 1965. The motorcycle is a tiny 50cc twin cylinder Bridgestone, much bet...
▲ Just a few weeks ago it was announced that the last of the 30,000 land mines the Argentinians scattered in the Falkland Islands after their 1982 invasion had finally been cleared. Coincidentally I stumbled across this minefield sign I’d brought back from the Falklan...
Jan Morris died yesterday – 20 November 2020 – at the age of 94. You would have to say 94 eventful years and I’ve been fortunate to bump into Jan in assorted places – the Book Passage travel weekends in Corte Madera, California and the Immrama Travel Literature Festiv...
Locked down in Melbourne for what seems like half my life-time now I’ve been very unenthusiastic about posting anything. Although in fact I have been ‘travelling’ in a fashion. I’ve been going through my colour slide collection, from the days before I switched to digi...
Lonely Planet author Mara Vorhees was the LP Russia expert and also a keen cyclist. She was part of the Lonely Planet ‘team’ we put together to ride the Tour d’Afrique from Cairo to Cape Town in 2009. Mara rode from Victoria Falls to Windhoek, following ‘The Elephant ...
My house has a totally enclosed courtyard and we often have birds nesting in it, for the last few years it’s been a pair of blackbirds who build a nest, lay eggs, hatch out the blackbird chicks. They then hang around for a surprisingly long time before they fly away. ...
Right now my world has a 5km radius. The Covid-19 Stage Four Lockdown we’re currently suffering under in Melbourne, the capital city of the Australian state of Victoria, has three main rules: 1. Mandatory mask wearing anytime you’re outside your home 2. An 8pm to ...
How big do the numbers have to be to for things to be really bad? Here’s a Victoria (state of Australia), Florida (state of USA), UK comparison. I’m 20 days into the Australian state of Victoria’s ‘State of Disaster’ lockdown – so tomorrow we’re half way into our s...
I visited Armenia in 2019, just one year ago, and really enjoyed my travels around that interesting country. My blog on Yerevan, the Armenian capital, links to two other blogs on my Armenian travels. Recently, in my Coronavirus Notes, I’ve mused on why the Covid-19 pa...
▲ On the Deleisha sand dune on the Indian Ocean island of Socotra, part of the country of Yemen. It feels like half a lifetime ago, but in fact that was 11 March 2020, only 5 months ago. It was my most recent overseas trip and it looks like it may be the last for a...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013