Bachelor’s winning ways
Last year’s Rural Bachelor of the Year winner Simon Washer says being asked for his best pick-up line was the most nerve-racking part of the competition.
Miles away from the buzzing city life you may wonder how a country bloke would meet anyone on the outskirts of Taranaki.
“It’s quite hard for someone like myself to go down to the pub and meet someone, “ says dairy farmer Simon Washer. “In the past 12 months I’ve had two days off.”
Washer, 26, started farming at 16 and although his career took off, finding a partner was never a priority. The thing with farming, he says, is that you make yourself as busy as you want to be and sometimes farmers need to draw the line. It’s about finding a middle ground, says Washer, who was brought up on the family farm and who last year won the Fieldays Rural Bachelor competition.
Luckily for rural chaps the annual contest helps eligible bachelors kick start their love life.
So is Washer single now?
“It’s the ultimate question isn’t it?” he laughs and says: “I have a partner, Stacey, I met about two weeks after I came back from Fieldays. If you come out of competition like that and you don’t find a lady something is seriously wrong.”
So what’s it like being an eligible reasonably dashing farmer during Fieldays week?
The long hours and nerve racking experience gave them a celebrity sort of lifestyle that’s not available on the farm. On the first night “TV One was there and they stuck a camera in our face and said ‘give us your best pick-up line’.
“That was probably the most nerve racking part of the whole thing. You’ve got a whole bunch of farmers who don’t get out and about much, they dedicate their lives to farming and you go and put [them on] a national TV camera and ask them to give them your best pickup line. That is scary. “
Contestants are not only judged on farming-related races, but also how they handle a difficult situation. “They’re looking at you and seeing how you behave in different sorts of situations. It’s about how you hold yourself over the entire week.”
However, what you get out of the competition is incredible aside from the prizes, Washer says. It’s the stuff that’s not material like meeting the CEO of the Fieldays and the prime minister and agriculture leaders.
And the exposure for your name if you win, by getting plastered all over magazines, is “absolutely amazing”.
During the competition bachelors are not allowed a night out in town so when it ended Washer and the other contestants went out on Saturday night.
“it was like being bait in the lion’s den,” he says. After taking out the competition Washer says his “phone didn’t stop vibrating for nearly three hours until like 5 clock that night. It was people saying congratulations. I received around 200 emails”.
Washer is back this year as a judge, along with Casey Huffstutler from the Young Farmers Association and Kiera Jacobson from Rural Women New Zealand, and a fourth judge who will be a sponsor or supplier.
Event technician Wai Taimai said judges will be looking at a range of aspects from technical skills, innovation and effort, to enthusiasm and crowd involvement.
The winner will be announced on Saturday. “This really is the opportunity of a lifetime for these rural blokes,” Vicki Annison, communication executive, says. The winner will win bragging rights, countless amounts of female attention and a $23,000 prize pool.
Josh Gilbert from NSW will represent Australia against seven New Zealand contestants. Kiwi bachelors include: Brett Steeghs (Tirau), Fraser Laird (Wanganui), Jeff Peek (Morrisville), Jimmy Bentham, (Te Aroha), Matthew Smith (Patetonga), Michael Paton (Norsewood), Thomas Denham (Harihari).
