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.
So is it the world’s worst hotel or the world’s most eco-friendly budget hotel? Watch their You Tube clip and decide – useful advice that if you leave your towels on the towel rail they won’t wash them. And if you leave them on the floor they still won’t wash them. An...
The other night I had a look around the unusual Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Sir John (1753-1837) was a pioneering architect in his era who was responsible for the Bank of England building, although it’s subsequently been chopped around so much that little of h...
When you’ve been nearly everywhere which countries are likely to be left? Of course first you have to decide how many countries there are. Some of us count rather more than the 193 the UN can muster. It’s a topic I mused about last year in How Many Countries. There...
In New York recently I was musing how nobody seemed to walk on escalators and whether it was a cultural thing if you stand or walk? I’m an impatient person and also I reckon I could always do with some more exercise, so I will almost always walk. If there’s the option...
▲ The crowded streets of Thamel in Kathmandu Most visitors to Kathmandu, particularly if they’re staying in popular Thamel spots like the Kathmandu Guest House, will have dropped into Pilgrims Bookshop. It was probably the best bookshop in the Himalaya and cert...
I’ve flown into Copenhagen, Denmark a few times over the years and one thing I always like is the lineup of wind turbines paralleling the coast between the airport and the city. If you come in from the Sweden side, you usually do, there they are, off to your right...
The trouble – well one of the many troubles – with airport security is it’s inconsistent. What they want done in one place they don’t in another. So it’s shoes on or off, belts on or off and sometimes the scanning sensitivity set so high that a credit card sets it off...
Geography can present publishers with lots of problems. I’ve written in the Lonely Planet Story how it regularly tripped us up. That big inlet in the Middle East? It’s the Arabian Gulf according to the Arab countries on its western side. The Persian Gulf to anybody fr...
No visit to New York is complete without a few galleries and museums, so we started our stay with a stroll through Central Park to the Guggenheim. You can check out the Guati Movement, a Japanese art movement following WW II through the ‘50s and ‘60s. Although my favo...
New Paint? Just flown to New York with American Airlines, who are currently making a song and dance about new aircraft, new style – all the advantages of going bankrupt. They do have a new colour scheme, since Day 1 American Airlines aircraft have not been painted – ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013