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.
◄ Every place we stopped on the walk to Ciudad Perdida seemed to have a resident cat, whether it was at an overnight refuge or a trailside refreshment stop. All of them small, sleek and content – ie not a scrawny scrounger. This one is Pilar, at the archaeological gue...
Always something new at Singapore’s Changi Airport? In fact the Butterfly Garden has been there since 2008, I just hadn’t been in the right terminal (or perhaps the right place in the right terminal?) before. It’s in the transit mall of Terminal 3 (the Singapore Air...
It’s not a walking guide, but if you want to have some of the complete confusion of Colombian events laid out then Tom Feiling's Short Walks from Bogotá is a great introduction. Of course you’re going to come away with the realisation that it’s whole lot more complica...
My final Colombia excursion was out to the Guajira Peninsula, the finger of land curving over the eastern corner of Venezuela and pointing towards the Dutch ‘ABC Islands,’ Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. I travelled to this remote corner of Colombia with Germán Escobar (C...
I’ve just finished a trip to South America – postings soon on walking up to Ciudad Perdida, Colombia’s fabulous jungle-shrouded ‘Lost City.’ And on a trip out to the remote Macuira National Park, way out towards the end of the desert Guajira Peninsula. Out there you f...
A return trip to Colombia was the final journey for my forthcoming book Dark Lands and while I was in the country I made the trek up to Ciudad Perdida, the ‘Lost City.’ The ancient Tayrona capital was principally built between the 11th and 14th centuries and then, its...
Forget the movie, I want the moving map up in front of me when I’m flying places. Often it alerts me to look out the window at whatever is passing by underneath. And even if there’s nothing to see I still want to know where we’ve got to, how much further we have to go...
Since I’m finishing writing a book to be titled Dark Lands – Colombia is the last chapter and my Colombia travels concluded last week – I thought I’d better read Dom Joly’s The Dark Tourist. Mr Joly is a British comedian and he’s very popular with the British, or ...
Joseph Conrad – author of Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness (the literary inspiration for Apocalypse Now) only had one ship command during his nautical career. In 1899 the sailing ship Otago put in to Bangkok when its captain died. Conrad assumed the command and sailed t...
Using your home country mobile phone when you’re overseas – roaming – can be extraordinarily expensive, particularly when it comes to data charges. Of course figuring out just what it’s going to cost can also be extraordinarily difficult. I have two mobile phones, one...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013