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.
▲ This one sums up the problem, I was in transit through a very empty Hong Kong airport on my way to Wakayama. On Sunday 16 February the coronavirus hadn’t kicked into high gear. But it soon would. ▲ It looks like it’s going to be a while before I’m looking out of ...
Lonely Planet’s Italian partners EDT have put out a new guidebook – well the cover at least – for the place we will probably be doing most of our travel in the coming weeks (or months): Home. It features – Tips from the experts – The secrets of the locality – Recom...
Before returning to Australia for a statutory 14 day spell of self-isolation I was on the Yemeni Island of Socotra, staying in its main town, Hadibou. Socotra has been described as the ‘Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,’ but it’s the plant life which is of greatest inter...
Hadibou – the largest town on Socotra Island and the capital of the island's eastern district – was my base while I travelled around that fascinating Yemen Island. ▲ The Central Mosque – I heard rather too much of this mosque during my stay in Hadibou. That’s the v...
‘Want to go to Socotra?’ my friend Simon Calder, eccentric travel editor for the London Independent, asked me in May last year. ‘Absolutely,’ I replied. I mean, what self-respecting traveller wouldn’t want to go to Socotra? ‘Right,’ said Simon. ‘Just send £800 a...
A Wakayama University conference on Overtourism – Tourism in Troubled Times – took me to Japan and, on the side, a little exploration of the Kii Peninsula. That’s the finger of Japan pointing south from big city Osaka and cultural centre Kyoto, down to Cape Shionomisa...
I drove up to Shepparton, a town almost exactly 200km (125 miles) almost exactly north of Melbourne in Australia to visit the Shepparton Motor Museum. With a few other interested Melburnians I’ve been kicking around the idea of establishing a Melbourne Transport Museu...
It’s rumoured that Donald Trump is about to add seven countries to his visa hit list. I’ve been to all but one of them, five of them in the last five years. 2018 07 – Belarus – yeah, I know it’s ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’, but I found it thoroughly interesting an...
I flew Qantas flight QF9 Melbourne to London last year and QF10 back. I won’t be doing it again. Flying non-stop for 17+ hours from Perth to London is the first of a number of Qantas ‘Project Sunrise’ flights which could one day link Sydney and Melbourne on the Austra...
If the madman in the White House – you know who I mean – does decide to take out a few Iranian cultural centres I certainly don’t want to provide him with a checklist. UNESCO already has, in that there are 24 World Heritage Sites he could be picking and choosing from....
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013