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 media is full of stories of Egyptian chaos and crowds camped out at Cairo Airport trying to get out of the country. Is there any other way out? ▲ January snow and my 9 year old daughter Tashi climbing Mt Sinai above St Katherine's Monastery. On my first tr...
Most Australia Days – 26 January each year – I head out somewhere in the state of Victoria as part of the Australia Day Ambassador programme – I’m an ambassador! This year I went out to the Western District, to the towns of Penshurst and Hamilton. Penshurst (popula...
A yabby, cherax destructor The past few weeks Australia has been devastated by floods, particularly in Queensland and in my state, Victoria. These floods follow more than a decade of equally damaging drought. Every year I head out somewhere in Victoria for Aus...
Trains hate going up or down hills, their metal wheels spin on the metal rails, 1 in 25 (a 1 unit rise for every 25 units travelled) is probably about as steep as you’d want. So planning a train line along the King River between the Tasmanian mining town of Queens...
Flying from Melbourne down to Tasmania, Australia’s island state, the other day my flight went right over The Heads, the narrow entrance into Port Phillip Bay. The Rip, the narrowest part of the entrance, is one of Australia’s most hazardous port entrances, a place w...
I picked this book up on a whim – and because I’m a geek when it comes to aircraft. Between the end of World War II and the late ‘60s Britain built a lot of interesting aircraft. Most of them with a remarkable lack of commercial success. James Hamilton-Paterson’s book...
Outside Magazine’s December 2010 issue has an article – If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be the Taliban – on travelling around Afghanistan with Englishman Geoff Hann’s Hinterland Travel group. Geoff has been running tours through unlikely places for many years and recently – ...
It's my annual look back at the year's travels. This year I started with Museums & Galleries, moved on to Cars & Bikes, then Animals & Wildlife, followed by Big Buddhas, 10 Books, Beaches, Aerial Views, Music and Weird Sightings, Great Signs. I’ll concl...
It's my annual look back at the year's travels. This year I started with Museums & Galleries, moved on to Cars & Bikes, then Animals & Wildlife, followed by Big Buddhas, 10 Books, Beaches, Aerial Views and then Music. Some very strange (and sometimes wo...
In 2009 I caught four great rock concerts – Leonard Cohen and then Neil Young in Melbourne, Van Morrison at the Albert Hall in London, Al Stewart in Newcastle in northern England. Rock-wise nothing hit the same high in 2010, not even U2 on their 360º tour when it came...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013