Bachelors return for one last showdown

Twenty-eight year old Te Aroha sharemilker, Nick Torrens, was crowned the eighth Fieldays New Zealand Rural Bachelor of the Year last year and will return to Fieldays this week to compete in the supreme ‘Best of the Best’ competition.

Torrens said winning the competition opened a number of opportunities for him to meet his bachelorette. But despite an “overload” of female attention over the past year he has yet to find true love.

“I’ve been lucky that I’ve dated some incredible girls. All in their own way they’ve been amazing, it’s just that for one reason or another it hasn’t been the right the person.

“When they come along it will just be one of those things. Whether you notice it because it’s like fireworks… or just the fact that you suddenly realise that this is the person you can’t live without,” he said.

Torrens will be one of only two competitors still searching for his sheila. But for now he has his eyes on another prize – the coveted title of ‘The Best of the Best.’

Eight previous Bachelor of the Year and People’s Choice winners will battle it out through a series of challenges to determine who is the country’s all-time bloke.

“The competition this year is pretty intense. But I mean I’m sort of taking the same approach to it as what I did last year. I’m more or less going along to prove a few things to myself and just to have a good time,” Torrens said.

New challenges include fencing, horse handling, general knowledge, dog handling and excavating.

And while he was modest about his strengths he thought he might have an edge in the barbecue challenge.

“My mates always reckon I make the best burgers they’ve ever had so hopefully my skills behind a barbecue will put me in good stead for that,” he said.

In the past Torrens has been labeled ‘the manliest man I know’ but he said his purple car and cupcake baking didn’t fit the title and was quick to debunk any myths about the typical rural bloke.

He said the stereotype of the stubby wearing, beer drinking and rugby watching rural male wasn’t a fair representation.

“Whilst I do all those things I think there’s a lot more to a typical rural male these days than you’d believe if you just went off the Fred Dagg, Wal Footrot sort of stereotype.”

Fieldays events coordinator Jacqui Cooper said the ‘Best of the Best’ event was a good way to celebrate the eight-year anniversary of the competition and that the judges would be looking for “the guy who shines”.

“It’s going to be the all-rounder. He’s going to be the classic Kiwi bloke; he’s going to be up with the play as a professional member of the industry… and have a great sense of humour,” she said.

The competition will be held over four days at Fieldays at Mystery Creek in Hamilton with the winner to be announced Saturday June 18.