Speaker 1 0:00
Hello everybody and welcome to this week's episode of midlife A F. Oh my goodness. Have I got a treat for you? This week? My friends, Jane and Nicole from siesta hood, which is a company for women who want to travel with other women and go on lovely swimming adventures have come to talk to us. Now I know this is something that's really interesting for people in our community. Because I mean for me for one I love going on a holiday with a group of other female assigned at birth humans. I did some amazing trips last year. One with Jane and Nicole and Jane and Nicole are part of my swimming group. The jellyfish swimming group in Williams town. absolutely vital part of my mental health and well being I'd love to introduce you to them. They've got something coming up this weekend. And Day weekend is a trip to bright and they're offering members of our community 20% off so if that's something that might be of interest to you have a listen. If you're a woman in midlife is intuition is telling you that giving booze the elbow might be the next right move. There. Midlife AF is the podcast for you. Join counselor psychotherapist this naked mind and gray area drinking alcohol coach Emma Gilmore for a weekly natter about parenting quirky teens, menopause relationships and navigating this thing called midlife alcohol free. If you're feeling that life could be so much more that you're sick and tired of doing all the things for everyone else. If your intuition is waving her arms manically at you saying it could all be so much easier. We didn't have to keep drinking, come with me. Together we'll find our group without booze.
Speaker 1 2:11
I lovingly acknowledged the Bruner and people of the Kulin nation as the custodians of current Baroque. I share my admiration for the Aboriginal culture I witnessed the connection that they have for each other and the land and their community. As I swim in the waters and walk on the land, I feel the power of this place. I'm grateful for the Aboriginal peoples amazing custodianship, the power, beauty and the healing potential of this place. I wish to pay special respects to the elders of the Buena, wrong people. Their wisdom, guidance and support are exceptional, and felt well beyond the Aboriginal community. I honor that this is Aboriginal land, and that it has never been ceded. I am committed to listening to the Aboriginal community and learning how I can be an active ally in their journey to justice. Welcome, Nicole. Welcome, Jane. So excited. Thank you for coming. Really appreciate it. So Nicola and Jade, funnily enough, are the two humans who invited me to go swimming. And I talk about swimming quite a lot in the podcast and in my groups, and how important it's been for me, and my mental health and well being. And Jain set up a group that we have locally here, a swimming group for women, and they can talk about that more if they want to. And Nicole was part of that group as well. And Nicole invited me I remember and Jane invited me and I was like, Oh, no. It's not called me. And then I was a complete addict and loved it so much and meet you so many lovely friends. And the reason I wanted Jane and Nicole to come and talk to us this evening, was because they have formed a really cool company, which I'll get them to talk about as well. But I recently went on a Well, was it last August or last July? I can't remember what was it? Yeah, yeah, I went to this amazing trip that they organized to the Whitsundays with a swimming group of wonderful human beings. And we had the most amazing time and we'll talk about it more but first of all, I will pass it over to Jane in a call ask them to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their business.
Speaker 2 4:40
Hi, everyone. And again, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, Jane and myself. We had many conversations about the community and also the swimming especially in the group that chain and a friend Andrea formed a jellyfish and what we He laughed about it, what really and how it has really enriched our lives. And both of us Chang and myself, we've been quite lucky actually, to have traveled a lot. I've seen a lot from the world. So we kind of loved adventure. And we wanted to bring the see and adventure and experiences and women and connection and everything together. And that's when we and was it 22?
Speaker 3 5:29
We started talking about Yeah, yeah, always inviting people to swim and have these experiences in different places. So places where we if we wanted to go to, and we want to go to, but maybe they couldn't go with their family or their family didn't want to or that was not appropriate, or they were looking for new options or anything. Like just, if you're one person you want to go, let's go. So yeah, we we found the jellyfish, which is the swimming group, where this idea came from was such an incredible support and a wonderful place to be especially during lockdown, because the community that formed around it, and the positivity and just the good vibes, I guess that it's kind of an extension of that for us, obviously. Yes. That's where it was born. Yeah.
Speaker 2 6:40
Well, I think the feedback I remember how a lot of women said they don't have women like that in their network. And maybe they want to experience a bit more like nature and and just a bit something different. And yeah, that's how we have sisterhood for something
Speaker 3 6:59
where you are where you just are. So yes, no clothes, there's no makeup or There are clothes.
Speaker 3 7:12
Optional. It doesn't matter what they are, check to pants and boots, or whatever does come as you either have to do your hair, you don't have to wear anything special. You just rock up and you just be
Speaker 2 7:30
like, and it's so freeing isn't it doesn't matter where you come from what you do and who you are. It's just real, go for a swim. And now we can do that in different locations, sisterhood. And one of the experiences that we're going to have this year in August is going to be the Whitsundays cruise again, it's the one that you've been on with us last year. Yeah. And how did you experience that? Yeah, so
Unknown Speaker 8:00
for me, like,
Speaker 1 8:02
these guys are talking. You know, the swimming itself, for me was an absolute lifesaver. Because I, I had sort of really reassessing my identity. And I really needed some connection with people that weren't necessarily part of kind of the world that I was in before. And it was so lovely. I met all these people. And every morning we'd go swimming, and it would be a new, you know, it might be a new group of people might be some faces. I knew some I didn't. And we'd have these beautiful conversations. Like, like, Nicole and Jane was saying with no airs and graces, everyone's equal, everyone's the same. And they're Daggy swimsuits and their, you know, swimming caps and just feeling very, very, all on a level. And then I swam with them for I don't know, I can't remember when I joined swimming in the jellyfish. But when I went on the trip with and it was really funny, because when the girls first started talking about the girls that's sorry about that. The women started talking about we it was such an exciting idea to me, I'd never been to the Whitsundays always wanted to go. It was something that my family would never want to come with me to do at all. And I made this decision for me and it felt really quite like wow, this is quite cool. I'm going to do this for me exciting. And the boats really amazing, isn't it? Tell us about the boat with a special boat, isn't it? Is it still a special boat?
Speaker 3 9:36
Yes, it's a it's a totally. It's, it's it's a I can't remember the year it was built in. But it's an original tool ship that's got quite a history that we'll learn about when we're actually on the trip. So it's quite big. It's not in and it's slow moving, so the pace is quite slow. But there's like 10 rooms, maybe I want to say get downstairs, which will have one or two or there's one that will have three people in there. So it's quite quite spacious. And it's just it's wonderful this big old wooden ship that just hangs around the Whitsundays. And from there like, last year, I know that we were lucky enough to see lots and lots of whales because it's whaling season and it's just unbelievably incredible. swam with turtles and lots of
Unknown Speaker 10:36
dogs really? Yeah, yes. Yeah, it
Speaker 1 10:38
was amazing. The swimming was like, I because I was like, I'm not that strong swimmer. I'm like, just a regular to him. I'm not like, like, I can do Front crawl, they don't call it Franco hills, they call it freestyle. I can do freestyle. And I'm quite happy to do it. But I'm not like a like, I'm not a fast and I don't like race or do long, big long distances or anything. But I had the most lovely time. I think we broke into a couple of groups, and where there was a more relaxed group, which I was passed. And we did a little bit of a freestyle, but mainly it was it was pretty slow. But it was just being in that beautiful water, seeing these incredible fish. And just being with these lovely human beings as well, just like everyone stopping for each other, making sure everyone was safe. You know, just felt so beautiful. And how many times did we swim a day? I reckon we swam to the stream twice or three times. At least twice. So nice.
Unknown Speaker 11:43
There was lots to look at. It didn't need to move fast. Now as you get in the water just looked like
Speaker 1 11:49
it was in the race. Oh my goodness, we saw. Yeah, it was just phenomenal. I saw just going off track of it. I saw this beautiful, huge snail. Like, I don't know, did you guys see this man?
Unknown Speaker 12:12
Oh, yeah. This stuff?
Speaker 2 12:19
No, no, you know, because because there's no, no singers, you know, and for us coming from a break from the winter. And yeah,
Speaker 1 12:29
it's a beautiful time of year to go. I just had the most incredible experience. And for me, it was really interesting because I am quite an introvert. Even though I talk and I'm can be very extroverted. I'm very much an introvert in a group situations. And so I like to be able to take myself off and have my own time and not have to feel like I have to do everything with a group so I can kind of, and I felt like that 100% It was so nice. I could be in or be out. And I think that's something that's really nice for people to be able to know because I think sometimes the more I'm going to be shipped with people, it's going to be really fun on but it's not. There's plenty of places to go. A
Speaker 3 13:10
lot of people come in after that, that trip that they will a bit worried about being on a trip with a bunch of women. But actually, it's a very empowering and open experience because no one has to organize anything. No one has to say no, no one has to make any decisions. No one's cooking. No one's cleaning up. Like there's there's nothing to do but just sit around talk if you want to or not reachable
Speaker 1 13:39
read your book or whatever. I had lovely read the book session.
Unknown Speaker 13:44
There was a lot of
Speaker 2 13:49
I think it's in alignment with what sisterhood is about, you know, some women wanted to swim a bit longer they were allowed or they were able to do that. Some just wanted like I often just went for a snorkel as well or short swim. And there was something to do for everyone or somebody didn't go for the swim. And I think this is what's really important for us as well that you can connect but also uniquely yourself and yeah, yeah, because life can be for so you know otherwise, and that's not the place where you have to pretend are feeding
Speaker 1 14:31
from that perspective. Yeah. The fish were just amazing. And I love to hike as well. We did a hike, didn't we? That was beautiful, too. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 3 14:42
my favorite part of that last time was when we could hear the whale song from the mountain. From the water that was
Unknown Speaker 14:54
massive beach that we went and swam along.
Speaker 3 15:00
Riga it's a five kilometer stretch of beach why it happened it's very famous and we we sort of drop people off at one end or pack some people swim the hallway some people swim and walk. Yeah, yeah and you basically have as long as we need to get from one and other however you want and also this little boats to pick you up if you don't want to walk or swim. Yes,
Speaker 1 15:29
yeah, as a crew we're just divine Won't they were so lovely find and
Speaker 2 15:36
but we do need to probably mention that it was quite an achievement. I mean Chang is one of the fabulous women who swam Whitehaven five and a half Cade and it wasn't a still day wasn't it night it was a big swim.
Speaker 3 15:50
Some people who go on that trip that's it that's the goal of the trip. Want to swim five kilometers and there are quite a few of them last year, but some had no interest in swimming five kilometers just walk on the beach for two and
Speaker 2 16:06
evening the crew remember broad music and have TPR food as well as something to drink at the beach and Whitehaven just had the most beautiful evening to look into sunset. Yeah. Music Yeah, so yeah, ladies, if you want to. Please, please say this.
Speaker 1 16:31
Funny enough. I was talking with my group last night. Not Yeah, last night. And we were talking about holidays. And they were saying oh, you know, it's it's really difficult to find holidays that aren't just about sitting around drinking, you know, and one of my clients is a big avid swimmer. And she was like, I really want to go and find some holidays where I can go with a bunch of women not you know if you've drinking great, but also so it's not just that's not the main event. We're not they're not important. No. Yeah.
Speaker 2 17:08
Actually, we we didn't know it wasn't a thing in the evening. No, so many, quite early.
Speaker 1 17:17
Yeah. But it's I think in midlife as well. There's a lot of especially you know, there's a lot more single women as well. And it's difficult to find things to do Yeah, it's really difficult we were talking about it in the group we were just like you know, it's really actually hard to find like lovely holidays that aren't kind of very much like a package kind of holiday or something very organized kind of holiday and this is much more light because Jane and Nicola so lovely. You're you know, it's a bit like going on holiday with you know, a group of ready made friends that you can really like yeah, you can feel safe and you can feel you know, in good company and in with like minded kind kind of human beings because I think generally if people like swimming, he tends to be pretty good people.
Speaker 2 18:08
Yeah, and it's nice. Yeah, I've met some women that I I kind of only knew from seeing around and now they became friends and I think I'll never forget, we had a envisage generate chain of February we had a silent disco in Williamstown beach which was so much fun but I'll never forget one woman she's she came up to me and she said, Oh, this is so beautiful. I think I found my my women I didn't know where they were and I think I just found them and I think that's that's another core really of what we want to achieve or we want to create the space we want to provide for women they can come and they just they think they're warranted to be themselves and feel safe and seen and
Speaker 1 18:56
yeah, and I just love when you said they don't have to wear any makeup. I'm like
Speaker 1 19:07
walking down the street today and just being like, oh my goodness, everybody's got makeup on and I feel
Speaker 4 19:13
I feel really out of place just like Grumpy. Like that
Speaker 1 19:20
when you swing is it everyone's kind of the same? Yeah. quite unusual. When you see everyone dressed up for you recognize people. Wow
Unknown Speaker 19:37
except you've got bright coming up as well. Haven't you? Have you got bright coming up with that?
Speaker 3 19:44
Anzac Day weekend? So it's coming up, Katie asked, which is Thursday to Sunday in bright in Victoria. And I'm super excited about that because we're swimming in lots of different water holes so rivers and lakes and a gorge. Like a child. Yeah. So do you extend it Dukes God, and that should be absolutely fantastic the water there's beautiful trees a changing color because it's autumn festival on our fresh food festival. Yeah, and the place we're staying in is fabulous to great. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 20:26
it's long as the fire. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 20:31
Have you got any spots left on that?
Unknown Speaker 20:33
We do? Yeah.
Speaker 2 20:36
Yeah, it's a big place so if anyone wants to jump on we'd love to have a couple more people. Yeah, yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 20:42
think that was That sounds amazing. I love bright and so
Speaker 2 20:45
Oh, I love bright too I usually go there in January and I can't wait I missed the kind of the mountains you know the the trees changing color from I grew up data Emma. And yeah, I can't wait it's gonna be so beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1 21:03
I just a lovely opportunity to be in nature with other humans getting that connection and getting you know, being outside and there's something so beautiful about swimming, and I haven't done much swimming, you know, in those kinds of holes and things like that. What's it like in comparison?
Speaker 2 21:26
In brain Bri now? Do you know what I've tried to look up the water temperature? actually go and I looked up the weather the other day. And because we go to like the Tanya, my buffaloes of the lake is quite high up there. Then maybe the river in bright and Rancho at the end of the day. It's called cold water.
Speaker 3 21:49
Feels really nice on your skin. Yeah, it's like a crisp clean.
Unknown Speaker 21:54
Kind of fast.
Unknown Speaker 21:55
It's yeah, yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you
Unknown Speaker 21:59
know, it's your first time coming in. Yeah, I mean up
Unknown Speaker 22:02
to your waist or Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 22:07
I think that's one of the things to say from my perspective. Swimming with Jain swimming with Nicole being part of their community is that they meet you where you're at? Yeah. 100% where you're at? Yeah. And so you never have to worry about. I'm too slow. Or I'm too you know, this is gonna be too scary for me or I you know, because they will meet you where you're at, and you will be made to feel safe and looked after?
Unknown Speaker 22:35
Yes. You don't have to have done any of it before. No, just just want to just want to see what that's
Speaker 1 22:44
what's your opportunity? Yeah. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself was to go and do that holiday.
Speaker 2 22:53
Yeah, it was a special few days. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 23:01
So people if they want to find out about the holidays, where do they where do they go? Yeah.
Speaker 2 23:07
So we have a website. It's sisterhood.com.au. See, like this see? Nazis Thrift, like the sisterhood. We're on social media as well. And on Facebook, we're on Instagram. We just started Instagram. So Facebook is probably the place. Yeah. You can also send us an email and either at sisterhood.com Calm not.com Today you only call or Hello at sea through.com. And, yeah, even if you have questions or if you want to come for a swim with us at Williamstown beach, it's where you can find several times during the week. And yeah, we got a special announcement as well for you guys. A
Speaker 3 23:56
special announcement, if anyone is keen to come to bright which is very soon we are offering a 20% discount just pop into Emma's name or hope hope rising and we'll know where you've come from. And to give you that 20% discount. So that that actually brings it down if you're happy to share a room to $800 for the four days and that includes food except for one evening meal. And your accommodation and us taking you everywhere and showing you all the stuff so it's it's a great value home cooked meals.
Speaker 1 24:34
Yeah, amazing. Okay, well, that's very generous of you. Thank you. That's very kind of you. I'll pass that on. And we'll put that in the notes underneath these posts when they go out. And then we will also put that in the in the show notes from the podcast and put that out on Monday as well. An exciting ending with the name sisterhood, but how did you come up with that?
Unknown Speaker 25:00
Malissa genius chain
Speaker 3 25:04
No we weren't we were just talking about like what what what our values for the for this whole thing were and what we wanted it to represent and stuff and it's just so much about the water or the sea and also community in and women because it's a base it's for women so like it's a sisterhood thing but it's in the sea or in the water so it's sea
Unknown Speaker 25:33
which has expanded to pride it's not easy
Unknown Speaker 25:42
either it's like the sin
Unknown Speaker 25:46
still a great name Yeah,
Speaker 1 25:48
it's a great name and you know what it reminds me of? Ah, Orphan Black Sea Astra. You know, she got me watch that show is review one of the characters in it refers to her sister as siesta. And it's really it's really beautiful. So whenever I had I didn't even think See, I thought it's yesterday. It's just Yeah. Oh, yeah. Is there anything else about it that you'd like to talk about or anything else that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 26:23
Oh, maybe just we also have another silent disco coming up in Shillong in May. And yeah, all the details are on our facebook or on the website. For one hour of fun. So much fun. On a Friday night, yes.
Unknown Speaker 26:40
And I have to say that the first time I was taken to let's say by what are you doing to make the sounds it was in the middle of the night? No way. Whatever. What do you okay you by okay.
Speaker 3 27:04
It's an absolutely fantastic thing. You all get your own headphones. And there's a like disco Dave who leads the show and he has a direct line into ears. So you get prompted with all these songs from my childhood, which me free and I couldn't hear what anyone else was doing around me. But I could see that the people that are on the disco with what we're doing and it just like, I was like, I've got a message from the disco. Dave put that some footage from the one that we did up on his Facebook page and a friend from university when is that? Yeah. So much fun. It's really in the end. We had a great time when we had dinner at Williamstown. Just yeah
Speaker 2 27:55
yeah 60 women came on nearly 10 So fun. Yeah. Shout out to Dave as well. This product aku who's guiding us again in Shillong. He's amazing. Yeah, he's doing you're doing it into long did you say this once in too long? Yeah. Yeah, actually, I
Unknown Speaker 28:11
know some people injured on him.
Unknown Speaker 28:14
Yeah, it's really good. You should.
Speaker 1 28:19
I will. If it's a date I can do I will definitely come because I do like a little bit of a boogie. It's got to be said, and I have into a silent disco before. And I did think it was really really good fun. I loved it as well. I like that whole like, you know, where you just kind of lose your inhibitions with
Speaker 2 28:36
exactly. Your soul. Kind of and you feel like because not you can't hear anything. No one can see you. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, it was great. Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 1 28:55
Well, thank you. Thank you both for coming on and talking about swimming and sharing your passion for swimming and adventure groups with beautiful humans, women. I think it's such an important thing to have a place where you can go and be that isn't, you know, isn't always the same things that we do every day, you know, and getting out in nature and having an adventure, having a giggle. Let your hair down. Not having to do any of this bloody housework or
Speaker 3 29:33
just put you played in that book. Oh, and I'll take care of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 29:39
That's it. That's it. Well, thank you both. So very, very much. I'll put all your details in the comments. And don't have beautiful game of tennis. Thank you very much for coming. And I really encourage anybody who just has a tiny little of all my my I'd quite like to do that to go and do bloody brilliant my absolutely loved it when I did it I highly recommend going on holiday with us too late please take care lots
Speaker 4 30:21
thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of midlife AF with Emma Gilmore. If you enjoyed it please share on Instagram for your friends and tag me at hote rising coaching. If you want to help me grow the podcast please review the episodes for me on Apple podcast that really helps. If you would like to work further with me please go to my website www Haute rising coaching.com for my free and paid programs or email me at Emma at Hope rising coaching.com sending a massive cuddle to you and yours for me and mine and remember to keep choosing you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
