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.
True or False? • The house of the Prophet Mohammed’s first wife Khadijah in Mecca has been demolished and replaced by a block of toilets • The Victoria’s Secret lingerie shop in Riyadh was burnt to the ground by angry matawwa, the Saudi Arabian religious police •...
▲ The view of earth from 400 km above in the International Space Station Back in 2008, courtesy of Space Adventures. I made a little trip to Moscow to visit the Cosmonaut Training Centre and then fly down to Baikonur in Kazakhstan to see a Soyuz space launch. I was...
Back in 1972 Maureen – at the tail end of the Asia trip which led to the very first Lonely Planet guidebook – Maureen and drove from Perth to Sydney. We shared the petrol costs to cross the continent in an EH Holden. Recently we’ve got back in touch – 40 years later –...
In between philosophising about everything from work, religion, sex and art to philosophy Alain de Botton also hung out at British Airway’s Terminal 5 for a week to watch what goes on. He was accompanied by photographer Richard Baker. It’s subtitled A Heathrow Diary. ...
Fortunately the air travel story in recent weeks has shifted from the tragic (crashed 777s) to the ridiculous (arguments over reclining seats). And for my money the villain of the piece is James Beach, the jerk who used the offending ‘knee defender’, he’s just one ste...
Remember postcards? A rectangle of cardboard with a picture. We used to send them to people, way back before emails and text messages and Facebook and Instagram. Well I still do regularly send postcards – to my mother (pushing 90) and to Maureen’s aunt (sailed past 90...
So most airlines can’t fly over Iraq and as a result airlines heading north or south from or to the Gulf cities (Dubai etc) are flying a little bit to the east over Iran. Including Delta and United? The US has no diplomatic relations with Iran, US companies are not...
Lido di Ostia is the beach resort for Rome, it’s nothing special but convenient if you’re flying out of Rome Fiumicino, the main Rome airport. I had an early morning flight so I decided to stay there and have a look at Ostia Antica, it was the port for ancient Rome, b...
I commented about flying over war zones in my blog on 9 July, a week before MH 17 was brought down. And followed that up with more thoughts on where airlines fly on 29 July.Yesterday I flew from Singapore to London on Singapore Airlines SQ 308. Singapore Airlines had ...
I’m sure I was not the only one thinking about the practice of flying over war zones before MH17 was brought down on 17 July – check my posting from 8 July about flying north from Dubai over the ISIS disputed parts of Iraq on a Qantas A380. Today Emirates have anno...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013