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.
▲ Southern Ocean Lodge & Hanson Bay Maureen and I spent four luxurious days – and nights – at the remote (and luxurious!) Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island off the Australian state of South Australia over New Year 2008-2009. Eleven years later on 3 Januar...
My recent Bali retreat mainly circled around travel writers and their Bali-related books, including Bill Dalton’s classic Indonesia Handbook and my own South-East Asia on a Shoestring, but other authors also featured. ◄ The Painted Alphabet – A mythical story of Ba...
The boring, too often repeated, questions I field all the time are ‘what’s your favourite place – followed by what’s the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened to you – and then where do you never want to go to again.’ Recently I’ve been hearing from friends who ha...
▲ Liz Trump & Liz Truss All the media has been noting the comparisons. Trump on his knees before the US bond market traders was precisely the same outcome as Britain’s 49-day-prime minister Liz Truss falling out with the UK bond market. I noted the blue plaque ...
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – that’s the state of Victoria in Australia, capital city Melbourne – is ‘the single most valuable literary award in the country’. The winner takes away A$100,000 as the big prize, plus another A$25,000 because they first have t...
I thought I’d added Bali to my ‘not going there again’ list, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia. I’m putting Bali on that list because the traffic is so absurdly intolerable and despite tourist money flooding in for decades the Indonesians have done nothing about it. ...
Far be it from me to be Anti-Woke, although in an all gender toilet in a restaurant in Bali recently an informal poll (somebody else was taking it) there was general agreement that the women would prefer a women’s toilet and the men would prefer a men’s. If there had ...
◄ ▲ There’s something about statues of despots, eventually somebody wants to pull them down. The fictional gold statue of Donald Trump which pops up in the Gaza Trump spoof video looks like a prime candidate for toppling. Doesn’t it look remarkably like ...
Oh dear, they’re dropping dead all around me. First it was Jane Birkin, born 14 December 1946 so six days before me. Died age 76 on 16 July 2023. Then Marianne Faithfull born nine days after me on 29 December 1946 and died age 78 on 30 January 2025. I’ve been fasci...
▲ My 1959 Cadillac on Route 66 I’ll probably never buy another car – unless it’s for doing something, over the years I’ve bought a 1959 Cadillac (to drive across the USA west-east and later east-west 1994). ▲ A 1989 Mitsubishi Lancer to drive from Plymouth (in E...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013