Australians look for love at singles' dances

CONDOBOLIN, Australia -- Looking like a cross between James Bond and Crocodile Dundee in his tux, cowboy boots and felt hat, Brad Barnett lounges against the dusty doorway of a country hall and casts an eye over his romantic prospects.

The 23-year-old rancher drove hundreds of miles in a pickup truck to a parched Outback fairground looking for love at the Condobolin Bachelor and Spinster's Ball.

But despite the traditional role such dances -- known as a B&S -- have played as rural Australia's cupid, Barnett and his friend, 21-year-old welder Warwick Ranclaud, doubt this affair will offer the women of their dreams.

The reason? There just are not enough women to go around.

"It's very hard now to meet women in the country," said Barnett, who works on his parent's 8,000-acre property in northeast New South Wales state.

Ranchers' lament

Barnett's lament can be heard from ranchers across this vast nation as rural Romeos find it increasingly difficult to meet young women prepared to settle down in the country.

Before World War II, Australia's agricultural sector was one of the nation's largest employers, and wool and grain among its highest export earners.

But a postwar boom in manufacturing and the launch of several major engineering projects drew people off the land.

Today, Australia is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, with 84 percent of its 19 million people living in the most densely populated 1 percent of the continent -- along the east coast.

By contrast, half the continent is home to just 0.3 percent of the population.

The nation's farmers also suffer from financial and environmental pressures. Most of Australia's east coast is experiencing a drought that has ruined crops and forced farmers to sell off livestock.

The B&S at Condobolin, 280 miles west of Sydney, is one of dozens held in country towns each year to give farmers and rural workers a chance to forget their woes and perhaps meet someone special.

This ball has attracted more than 1,600 people, many of whom traveled more than 310 miles along dusty country roads in souped-up pickup trucks, known as "utes."

The utes, an integral part of B&S culture, have large bull bars attached to the front and are covered in bumper stickers with such slogans as, "My ute, my country, no distance too far, just follow my dust to the next B&S bar."

Most partygoers sleep in the back of their utes or roll out a "swag" -- a canvas-covered sleeping bag -- under the stars to sleep off the night's excesses.

Some women at "Condo," as Condobolin is locally known, admit that the vehicle often is what attracts them to a man.

"It doesn't matter what he looks like, it's the ute that counts," said Alyse Hawks, who came to the ball with six girlfriends.

Men dress for the dance in tuxedos, boots and hats. Women squeeze into homemade taffeta skirts -- but leave their boots and jeans on underneath.

A band covers songs in the country hall, while men wait outside at a long bar to fill the plastic cups issued when they pay the $47 entry fee, which includes all the beer you can drink and a couple of steak sandwiches.

'They're feral'

By midnight, drunken young men scuffle in the red dust as others urge them on. Their suits are sodden with beer and rum, and some have ripped shirts.

This behavior is what some women believe keeps the Outback bachelors from finding lifelong partners.

Michelle Best, 18, a hairdresser attending her first ball, said the men were not doing themselves any favors.

"I'd never pick up one of these guys -- they're feral," Best said. "I'm not really impressed."

As they shuffled into their ute the morning after the ball, Ranclaud had a woman's phone number while Barnett left only with a resolve to try again at the next B&S.

"There's not much else to do," he sighed.