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.
Maureen and I flew in to Santo Domingo from New York, spending a few days in this fine old colonial city before taking a bus to Port au Prince in Haiti. There’s not a lot to see in the DR’s capital, but it’s easy enough to spend a couple of days wandering the Zona Col...
Aircraft Names The Qantas A380 fleet is named after famous Australian aviators. Their first A380 was named after Nancy Bird Walton. That was the aircraft which suffered an engine explosion out of Singapore in 2010 and spent over a year on the ground in Singapore b...
Late last year I travelled around Israel and Palestine, later this year Pakistan is on my wish list. So these two books were interesting primers on those countries. Of course both books proved, yet again, that the more you learn about a subject the less you realise yo...
Observant visitors to Bali soon become familiar with canangsari, the little offerings which are put out every morning for the spirits, good and bad, which pervade everything in Bali. A little woven tray sports a few flower petals, a few grains of rice, perhaps a crack...
I’ve always loved the travel element of William Gibson’s novels, the use of the weirder corners of our world today as models for a just-around-the-corner future. Distrust that Particular Flavor is a collection of Gibson’s non-fiction – essays, reviews, reports, analys...
Everywhere I went in Bali giant ogoh-ogoh figures were under construction. Not only everywhere, but everytime – when I set out from Ubud at midnight to drive to the foot of Mt Agung to climb that iconic volcano ogoh-ogoh constructors were still hard at work. The ...
▲ For our 2004 book Rice Trails – A journey through the ricelands of Asia & Australia –photographer Richard I’Anson and I wanted an iconic photograph of Balinese rice farmers working on their fields with the island’s holy mountain, Gunung Agung, towering over...
Taras Grescoe travels the world looking for banned or disapproved of drinks, foods and substances. So he goes through a meal via aperitif, crackers, cheese, main course, a smoke, digestif, dessert, herbal tea and finally (and very final) a one-time-only nightcap • ...
My Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea trip took me via a back door entry into PNG through the Shortlands Islands. En route I had a look at the tragic history of Balalae Island and then tracked down the wreckage of Admiral Yamamoto’s WW II crash. On Bougainville I ma...
In February I travelled up through the Solomon Islands and into Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. I’ve posted on my back door route to Bougainville, taking a local boat across from Shortland Island, the northernmost island in the Solomons. I’ve also posted on the sad ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013