Who are Chris, Vee and Tilly.
We’ve been on the road almost 12 months and have never really introduced ourselves properly. Guess it’s better late than never…. so who are Chris Vee and Tilly
As some of you may know, Chris and I are from Manchester in the North of England. We’re a couple in our late 30s who love to travel. We have been together 22 years, and we first met as I was finishing school and Chris was working at his uncle’s corner shop.
After being together a few years, Chris decided that he wanted to live in Australia…. I was hesitant at first, all I knew was home in Manchester. We talked a lot about how to make it happen and thought we’d get our 1 year working visa and see where our journey would lead to.
We have always loved to travel and thought we’d visit a few other countries on the way. Our itinerary included, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, the states then home.
After landing in Australia we bought a 15 year old vn commodore and camping equipment and off we went. In any major capital cities we’d get short term accommodation, but ever where else we used a tent. We spent 12 months working and travelling around Australia.
Making our way back
Getting back to the UK was a real culture shock, especially in mid February when the nights were still long and the days cold.
We couldn’t hack it so within 2 weeks we were on another plane out to mainland Spain. Chris’ parents had lived out there a few years so we knew the area relatively well. We quickly found jobs and made enquires about getting back to Australia full time. Spain is a great country but everything really is mañana, so we didn’t want to live there forever.
Back in the day, permanent residency visas took forever. Original documentation had to sent from the Spain ( translated ) through to Australia and nothing happened quickly. Thankfully, these days, scanned certified documents seem to make visa applications move quicker.
18 months later we were on our way back to Australia with our visas in place ready to start our new life down under.
Arrival in Australia
Out of all the places we had visited around Australia, Perth was still our favourite city. With its laid back lifestyle a million miles away from eastern states hustle and bustle, it was definitely our kind of city.
Since living in Perth, we’ve made a life for ourselves. Chris has stayed in his sales background he had in the UK and had his own business. Whilst I have remained in the hair and beauty industry.
Tilly is a German Shorthaired Pointer. A gun dog, or hunting dog, however Miss Tilly has never hunted a thing in her life. She points as the breed name suggests and has the full hunt instinct, but she’s a family pet, our fur baby.
Tilly loves life on the open road, mainly because she gets to spend all her time with us, but she loves nothing more than watching the world go by as she sits in the car as we travel or on her camp chair….. yes she has her own moon chair lol.
The planning
A couple of years ago we decided we wanted to travel again so started putting plans into action. We upgraded the car and the caravan, have a read on our other post for our choices. This explains how we came to the decision of what car and caravan suited our needs. https://www.chrisveeandtillysbiglap.com/blog/travelling-australia-with-a-caravan/
We went through a letting agent and organised tenants for our home back in Perth. We didn’t want to be on the other side of the country and have a tenant ringing up over a property issue. Plus have someone who you can rely on if any issues arise definitely puts your mind at ease.
We finally got all our boxes packed and furniture stored and hit the open road on the 6th November 2017.
So this was a little introduction about who Chris Vee and Tilly is. Where we came from and what inspired us to travel our big back yard.