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 was one of the judges of the 2015 Warwick Prize for Writing from Warwick University in England. The books had to feature a one word theme: instinct. We ended up with a shortlist of six titles – one of which I could not stand, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s A Man in Love. Two...
▲ I spent five days aboard an Indonesian phinisi sailing around the Komodo Islands. The Katharina is a newly built (1998), all wooden Bugis-style schooner, operated by Bali-based SeaTrek. I was the guest lecturer on this pre-Ubud Writers Festival voyage. ◄ In the K...
I posted on the new Singapore yesterday, my stays included a spell in the new mega-hotel Marina Bay Sands. I also check out two hotels in Chinatown (New Majestic and Naumi Iliora) and one in Little India (Wanderlust). Two of them featured a development I saw in Hong K...
I’ve been to Singapore twice this year and explored a variety of old and new sites. ◄ I was not knocked out by the Gardens on the Bay – extending from across the freeway from the Marina Bay Sands ‘Integrated Resort’ down to the new waterfront. The big attractions a...
The Nikola Tesla Museum was a highpoint of my recent visit to Serbia, but as I left I visited another superb museum. Out at Belgrade Airport, only a five minute stroll from the Nikolai Tesla Airport Terminal is a very interesting aviation museum. Housed in a flying-sa...
◄ No question, the highlight of my 2015 visit to Serbia was the whacky Nikola Tesla Museum and I discovered another rather wonderful museum while I was there – more on that one tomorrow. During my visit Central Belgrade featured an assortment of huge statues construct...
Tesla – it's that well known Californian electric car – I’ve driven the original two seat roadster, including over the mountain passes in Switzerland, and the current Tesla Model S in both England and Australia. Tesla of course, is named after the scientist-engineer-i...
It looks like I’ve abandoned this blog, it’s been three months since I’ve put anything up. OK, I’m going to fix that, December 2015 I’ll put up something every day. It isn’t like I haven’t been travelling this year – or doing things – or reading books. And we’ll start...
I took a ‘Communism Tour’ in Sofia, Bulgaria – meet outside the Palace of Justice at 4pm on Sunday. Twenty Five years after the fall of Communism it’s pretty clear they’re still trying to come to terms with what it was all about. ▲ The sign and logo for this old Co...
So often the views out the window are superb, like on Cathay Pacific CX-257 from Hong Kong to London last week. We started off by flying south out of Hong Kong, before turning north and flying right over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. We continued north across China...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013