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.
In recent weeks I’ve stayed at two favourite hotels, both of them with a heavy emphasis on art. The Imperial Hotel is a stone’s throw from Connaught Place, the centre of India’s capital New Delhi. It’s a throwback to the old Raj era and it’s simply packed wit...
I like bicycles and every time I go to India I contemplate bringing back a Hero bicycle. It could join my small (just three bikes) collection in Australia or my London bicycle – which I rode London-Paris a couple of years ago. Although in London I’m often out on B...
I’ve just left Rajasthan, the most colourful state in India. A favourite glimpse of a picture in the gallery at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur – it’s Maharajah Bakhat Singh watching his elephants ‘wreaking havoc.’
Maureen and I arrived at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India on our first wedding anniversary on 7 October 1972. We'd driven from London to Kabul in Afghanistan where we sold our car and were continuing east on a trip that would eventually end at Sydney in Australia. And lea...
The biggest business travel story for me at the start of 2013 was the news that Avis are buying Zipcar. I’m a big fan of the car share business and although I’ve only tried it out in Melbourne (with Flexicar) I’m a card-carrying regular with Zipcar when I’m in London....
▲ This is Virgin Blue – the Australian offshoot – not the London-based Virgin Atlantic. I flew Virgin Blue down to Tasmania a few days ago BootsnAll Travel alerted me to their new Indie website which, they claim, is the first one that lets you book Instant Pricin...
I went down to Tasmania with some friends a few days ago and managed to run into the state’s worst bush fire in years. From our holiday shack on Steele Island, about 50km east of Hobart, we could see the smoke blowing over the ridge to the north. The road to Port Arth...
On 29 December 2012 Melbourne switched completely to its Myki travel card system. If you want to travel on Melbourne public transport you need a Myki card. I’ve had mine for three years and I compared it with my London Oyster card back in early 2010. I mentioned h...
◄ Christmas tree cockatoos We get lots of birds around our place in Australia. Even though we’re only a few km from the centre of the city we see birds every day. A big, noisy flock of cockatoos descended onto a pine tree at breakfast one morning, making it look li...
Back in 2006 I wrote a brief review of Mo Tejani’s A Chameleon’s Tale. I commented that Mo’s life was typical of today’s global nomads, living here, connected to there, nationality somewhere else. Although Mo lived in Thailand he started out in Uganda, until his famil...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013