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.
'It is not down on any map; true places never are.’ It’s one of Herman Melville’s most famous quotes, from Moby Dick, and Alastair Bonnett’s book certainly pursues that idea. Many of his ‘Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities and Forgotten Islands’ never appear on maps or fad...
We continued our Turkey trip from Göreme to Koya with a couple of interesting stops en route.▲ As we approached the town of Aksaray the snow-capped volcanic peak of Mt Hasan, Hasan Dağı in Turkish, was clearly visible off to the south. ▲ We paused at the massive Su...
The next stop on our Turkey circuit was Göreme, Maureen and I were there way back in 1972 and we’ve never been back. ▲ Göreme is the principal village in the fairytale district of Cappadocia, noted for its lunar landscape of ‘fairy chimneys.’ Over the centuries the...
▲ The Citadel A city of more than a million population, Gaziantep has a hulking citadel in the centre of town, a busy bazaar, the best pistachio baklava in Turkey and the stunning new Gaziantep Zeugma Mosaic Museum. The mosaics are mainly from the Roman city of Bel...
My second stop in a GHF tour of Turkish archaeological sites was at mysterious Nemrut Dagi. Note that there are two mountains name Nemrut Dağı in Turkey, this is the one further to the west. The long and winding road to the mountain top, followed by a winding climb fr...
I’m on the board of GHF – Global Heritage Fund – and I’ve been travelling around Turkey looking at their current Turkish site (Göbekli Tepe), a previous site (Çatalhöyük) and assorted other sites that GHF are interested in, might be interested in or were simply worth ...
The Saxon villages of Transylvania are a GHF project, they’re attempting to preserve villages which have suffered depopulation and neglect since the fall of Communism in 1989. ▲ These beautiful little villages preserve not just medieval architecture, but a medieval...
I’ve never been to Romania before (it was on my list) so the Global Heritage Fund project project in Transylvania, which I wrote about exactly a year ago, was a good reason to plan a visit. But first I stopped in Bucharest for a couple of days. Poor Romania has had...
It’s Il giro d’Italia in 80 librerie – the Tour of Italy to 80 bookshops – with a subtitle ‘not to mention schools and libraries.’ The idea is on weekends over the next couple of months a relay of Italian publishers and authors will cycle from the north of Italy right...
It’s the heady mix of ‘West meets the rest’ as Doug Hendrie checks out assorted collisions between the developing world and the new ideas and technology. Doug travels to South Korea to see how videogames have become a national sport. He visits the Philippines to obser...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013