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.
▲ Twin Islands, Hogan Group in Bass Strait Back in 2019 I visited Erith Island in Bass Strait, the often stormy waters that separates the Australian state of Victoria from the island state of Tasmania. I was working on my National Library of Australia book Tony Whe...
After Kea (a remarkably unspoilt Greek Island) and Jamaica I made a short visit to another Greek island – Hydra. Now Hydra has been on my ‘must do’ list for far too long and I’d really like to go back. It’s not as far off the beaten tourist track as Kea, but it’s cert...
For some reason I’d never been there, pretty much everywhere else in the Caribbean, Haiti twice, Cuba three times, I’d even spent part of my childhood in the Bahamas, but somehow Jamaica evaded me. Not any more, I did almost a circuit, arriving in Kingston and depa...
It’s the furthest north of the Cyclades Island group and more a Greek holiday destination than a foreign one. In fact if you want reassurance that overtourism has not taken over the world then Kea is a good place to come. This is not Mykonos, Santorini or even Hydra. ...
Wow – that Donald Trump – aka Taco Trump, Dog-E Trump, Liz Trump, Tariffs Trump – he keeps on providing travel inspiration. Only a couple of weeks ago I suggested ‘Donald (Taco) Trump presents the best travel list since Bush’s Axis of Evil’ when he came up with his 12...
Wow, another presidential travel challenge. I wrote my book Bad Lands, published back in 2007, because George W Bush had proclaimed Iran, Iraq and North Korea as his ‘Axis of Evil’ and, of course, I thought ‘well I want to go there.’ I added Afghanistan, Albania, Cuba...
All the airline routes that follow are from FlightRadar24’s wonderful website. I commented recently on Ryanair 4978 from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania doing a little westward jog approaching or departing Vilnius to avoid crossing Belarus airspace. That’s a r...
My recent blog – I’m Not Going There Anymore – soon raised other possibilities for a ‘no go’ list. I should agree immediately that this is a change of attitude for me. For a long time I’ve thought we should go anywhere, it’s important for all sorts of reasons that we ...
Uluru (aka Ayers Rock back in the day) – my multiple visits – I was back to Uluru in April 2025, with a family group, 17 of us, down to newborn baby Molly (definitely her first visit), Veda (aged 6) and assorted others, some on their first visit, some not. For me it w...
Recently I suggested that I hope I never have to go back to Bali. I simply never want to sit through another hour of Balinese gridlock. The traffic is impossible, insufferable, intolerable. When you get to your destination you basically do not want to leave. A quick t...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013