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.
I did a flight over Byron Bay a couple of weeks ago in a 1940s de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane, my daughter Tashi bought me the flight as a Christmas present (thank you Tashi!). ▲ You can see the Byron Bay lighthouse, marking the most easterly point in Australia, a...
◄ The Byron Bay lighthouse marks the most easterly point of Australia. With a group of friends I head off somewhere in Australia for a week in January or February each year. This year Byron Bay was the destination, the LP Australia guide suggests it’s the place where ...
Well perhaps you shouldn’t climb it, some people say the local Aboriginal Bundjalung are unhappy about ascents of Wollumbin, rather like Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Central Australia. On the other hand when you get to Wollumbin National Park, starting point for the Mt Warni...
▲ I was in Sydney for New Year’s Eve, here are the midnight fireworks on the Harbour Bridge. ◄ The next day with a bunch of friends I took the ferry from Circular Quay across to McMahon’s Point and we walk back alongside Lavender Bay to Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Gard...
◄ Last year ended with The Address Hotel in Dubai if not exactly going up in flames certainly having a rather interesting fire. On my last visit to Dubai I nearly stayed in The Address, but instead ended up in the Dubai Creek Hilton. The interesting thing about thi...
In yesterday’s blog I raised the ‘what does it take to say you’ve visited a country’ question. And like Ask the Pilot Patrick Smith I agree that you can’t say you’ve been there if you’ve only been to the airport. But could you ‘visit a country’ between flights? I r...
I’ve bumped into assorted people who have made ‘I’ve been everywhere’ into a major challenge. Well I haven’t been everywhere and I’m not working on it. On the other hand I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get to at least one or two ‘new’ (for me) countries every year. In...
The name may have changed , but otherwise India’s southern centre, the capital of Tamil Nadu, seemed scarcely changed even though I haven’t been there for a long spell. ◄ Top of my plans for my return visit was to check out Anstruther’s Cage at Fort St George. In 1...
In a country where central planning tried to run everything and Socialist Realism aimed for the grand, the majestic, the over-decorated, somehow bus stops escaped the net. Christopher Herwig spent more than a decade and travelled over 30,000 km around the countries of...
◄ What is it about taxis and movies? Film directors just love to squeeze inside those four wheeled confines. Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth – which visits Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome and Helsinki all in one night is a favourite, but yesterday I saw two taxi...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013