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.
I spend a lot of nights in hotels – apart from camping, staying with friends, travel on boats, trains and planes and other excuses for being away from home. Last year that came to 116 nights in 61 different hotels. And of course there are inevitably some things I don’...
I’ve never been to Congo – to either of them, Republic of Congo (the ex-French one, capital Brazzaville) or Democratic Republic of Congo (the ex-Belgian Congo, ex-Zaire, capital Kinshasa), but they’re both on my list and I keep reading books about them. Of course t...
Judith Schalansky’s book was originally published in German and won design awards. It’s a delight, a weird and wonderful assortment subtitled ‘Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will.’ Each features a map and a short and often intriguing essay which migh...
Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2011 stirred up the usual interest on its release. Assorted cities (including Tel Aviv and Australia’s Newcastle – not the British version) noted their inclusion in the ‘Top 10 Cities’ category. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, vis...
I don’t have to go far to see the wildlife – feathered variety at least – at this time of year. They come up to my study windows, I can watch them as I type this. For the past month we’ve had an angry magpie attacking its reflection in windows all around the hous...
Don George in California regularly puts together travel writing anthologies for Lonely Planet and his latest collection follows that most important travel activity: eating. They’re all short tales, just a bite-sized mouthful each. My Moveable Feast favourites: • Ju...
▲ From 34km up it certainly looks like space Chris Lansell dreamed up the Melbourne Solar System along Melbourne’s bayside, it launched as a Planet Wheeler project in 2008. Recently Chris came up with another project, we’d send up a couple of cameras on a wea...
Criticising a book or a film without reading it or seeing it is never a good idea. But there are two recently released books, and from opposite ends of the political spectrum, which I’m not going to waste my time reading. First there’s George W Bush’...
▲ Crossing the Pacific in a Qantas A380, view from the tail-mounted Skycam How long before the Qantas fleet of A380 aircraft gets back into the air? They’ve been grounded since QF32 suffered an ‘uncontained engine failure’ on take-off from Singapore's Changi Airp...
Our October trip from London to Australia was long and low so there were plenty of aerial views. Starting with our first stop on Jersey, just over an hour out of London’s Biggin Hill Airport. Jersey is one of the Channel Islands, close to the French coast, but British...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013