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 flew Southwest Airlines the other week, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Nashville, Tennessee. Not because I wanted to (although Southwest was absolutely fine), but because American Airlines wouldn’t sell me a ticket. I was in the British Virgin Islands when I tried...
I flew from New York to London the other day, earlier the same day Mark Shand, emerging from a New York hotel bar, tripped, fell, hit his head and died. Mr Shand was the brother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, wife of Prince Charles, so in the British media it was a ...
Seems like every city I visit these days – from Taiyuan in China to the San Francisco Bay Area in the USA – has rolled out a bicycle share scheme. I’m a regular user of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme (aka Boris Bikes after London Mayor Boris Johnson) when I’m in Lo...
My interest in electric vehicles continues. I’ve recently tried the Tesla Model S in London and back in 2011 I spent a couple of days charging around the Swiss Alps (well discharging actually) in a Tesla Roadster. I’ve also owned a Prius (it’s electric for short spell...
Bad Lands – my foray along the Axis of Evil, President George W Bush’s trio of Iran, Iraq and North Korea, plus six other ‘bad’ countries, was published in April 2007. A revised second edition came out in mid-2010 and I commented that remarkably little had changed: ‘T...
▲ I like statues of national heroes popping up far from home. Near my home in London this statue of the Ukraine national hero St Volodymyr (aka Vladimir the Great) has been flower bedecked recently as the struggle with Russia grinds on. It's on the corner of Holla...
Having explored the art deco architectural masterpieces of South Beach I eventually ended up in the Wolfsonian Museum where I stumbled upon an Irish delight: the Harry Clarke Geneva Window. Clarke was a noted book illustrator in the early part of the 20th century, but...
Lonely Planet’s website has a story on Seven Amazing Fakes, reproductions of exotic structures – like Foamhenge, just like Stonehenge, same size even, although it is made out of Styrofoam rather than stone. ▲ Nashville’s Parthenon is rather better than an amazing f...
The Miami Design Preservation League at 1001 Ocean Drive in South Beach, Miami, puts on daily Art Deco Architecture walking tours of the Art Deco district of Miami Beach. The tours kick-off at 1030 am daily, there’s no need to pre-book, they cost A$20 and last 90 minu...
Kicked out of the USA? Although probably we never entered? Either way it was a new travel experience and an unexpected one. With four British friends we’d been sailing around the Virgin Islands in a chartered boat, we started in Tortola and after five days in the B...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013