download the new version for android Middlemarch

A further 300 wait at the other end of the line. Some 300 hopeful singles ride the train to Middlemarch. So for many the singles ball at Middlemarch (normal population 186) is a significant calendar event, a genuine opportunity to meet a partner, a companion, a husband or wife.īut first they have to get to the ball, and that’s where the Love Train – a 154km, two-hour ride from Dunedin – comes in. Isolated and time-poor, they are often ignored on dating apps such as Tinder because the GPS pinpoints their location as hundreds of kilometres from the nearest cocktail bar.

That in turn has attracted rural men – shepherds, stock agents and farmers in the high country of the underpopulated South Island. With a well-documented man drought in the South Pacific country of 4.7 million people, the event has become especially appealing to single women. The ball has taken on a mythical status in New Zealand, becoming infamous for its debauchery, heavy drinking and occasional, long-lasting love matches. That destination is Middlemarch and a singles ball which, inspired by the matchmaking dances of the 1950s, has been bringing together thousands of young, mostly unattached, people every two years for the past decade and a half. Eight carriages full of single millennials take the train from Dunedin to Middlemarch.

Download the new version for android Middlemarch