Top Of Her Field Mairi's Quite A Catch!

This Kiwi Champion Is Realising Her Dream to Own a Farm

- Lynley Ward

When Mairi Whittle’s university friends gave her an ultimatum between entering a singles competition at the country’s biggest farming expo or an arranged marriage on a reality TV show, she was tempted to run for the hills.

“My university girlfriends from when we were 18 and mad spotted the ad and said I had to enter,” laughs the 28-year-old Taihape shepherd and newly crowned Fieldays Rural Catch winner.

“They actually threatened me. I said, ‘No, I’m not applying!’ They said, ‘If you don’t enter this, we’re going to put you in Married at First Sight. You’ve got a choice.’”

Despite her initial misgivings, Mairi’s application was not only successful, but she ended up acquitting herself with distinction across a range of challenges in the annual rural show at Hamilton’s Mystery Creek.

Speaking to the Weekly during a lunch break after dagging hundreds of sheep on her rugged central North Island farm, the bachelorette beauty reveals that the experience ended up being better than she imagined.

“You were getting judged the whole time around crowd interaction, attitude and personality. I definitely didn’t win it on the challenges alone, but they were all quite fun.

“Though I was terrible at using the digger on the back of the tractor,” she admits. ”I’m not machinery-minded!”