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.
The Bangkok floods have been getting the media attention but the message from Burma (Myanmar) was straightforward: ‘Guys your bridge is under the water. Inle Lake and surrounding are flooded.’ Back in 2001 Lonely Planet financed a 330metre long bridge to connect th...
With my daughter Tashi, son Kieran and their partners plus four other friends I made the trek (and horseback ride) up to the legendary capital Lo Manthang in the second half of September. Change is on its way, a road is already open from the Chinese border south to Lo...
The Football World Cup is scheduled to be held there in 2022 and there’s been plenty of controversy about that decision. So when I flew via Doha between Nepal and Australia recently it seemed a good reason to stop in for a look around. My impression? Well 24 hours in ...
I’ve driven up (or down) the Croatian coast several times over the years, the first time right back in the Yugoslavia era. This time I joined a bunch of friends to make the trip by boat. A series of often overlapping islands sprinkle the length of the coast, spectacul...
In Ghetto at the Center of the World Hong Kong-based academic Gordon Mathews analyses a single building ghetto. It’s probably the world’s best example of ‘low-end globalization’ and all crammed into a 17-storey building on Nathan Rd in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Ko...
Maureen and I zoomed out of London on the high speed rail line from London to Folkestone, it follows the Eurostar route out of St Pancras station. ▲ Folkestone is just along the coast from Dover. Back in the pre-Eurostar days Folkestone-Boulogne was the poor cous...
I’m always delighted at how many things carry on and on in London. Here are three I’ve been to recently. ▲ I finally got to St Martin’s Theatre to see Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. At 59 years and still packing them in it’s London’s longest running play. There was...
When a promised job in Barcelona falls through, after he’s already moved there, Michael Tonello needs a way to make a living which doesn’t require a work permit. Racing around Europe, and then further afield, and gently extracting pricey handbags from Hermès shops is ...
◄ There have been some great ‘views out the window’ this year and flying to Belfast a couple of weekends ago certainly provided a few. Like this view of the Isle of Man, half way between Ireland and England. You can just about imagine where the TT motorcycle track goe...
Maureen and I travelled around South-East Asia for most of 1974 researching the very first edition of South-East Asia on a Shoe- string. Much more recently Brian Thacker took the same trip from Timor in the south to Laos in the north using a copy of that first edition...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013