Over the Edge: An Interview with a City Abseiler Part 2

Enzo Fantone loves to climb.  The 23 year old Frenchman came to Aotearoa on a working visa at the beginning of 2023.  He was picking fruit in Central Otago when a casual offer to go climbing introduced him to a sport that immediately hooked him.

“I’ve always been attracted to outdoor activities.  What I like about climbing is, first, the social abilities you develop.  Climbing is just the moment where you take time to understand the other.  It’s also really important because you have life between your hands so you have to be clear. You have to be 100 percent transparent in the way you talk and the way you understand the other.

“Then there is this body awareness that I really like too.  It’s a nice sport because its slow.  You don’t have to go fast.  It’s about one move after the other.  It’s a type of meditation when I go on the wall.

“It’s like playing chess on the rock.  And you’ve got four different points, and you place them in a different way.  And I think I really like this fact that you don’t have to rush.  You’ve got all the time you want and it’s just you, the rock and the person belaying you.”

On a climb one day Enzo “met this guy and he was like, in full gear, and looking really professional.  I started talking to him and I asked him what he did for a living.  He told me he was abseiling and was based in Christchurch.  We just started talking and I was fascinated by how much knowledge he had on climbing, through abseiling.”

“I was like “Oh, I want to get better at that”.  I want to get better at climbing and I want to explore also the rope access.  And also, getting paid for that is even better.”

When the fruit picking finished Enzo made his way north to Wellington, working hospitality jobs along the way, but still with a thought of how he could turn his passion for climbing into outdoor work.

Exploring Wellington’s CBD, he spotted a sign with an abseiler. Feeling he had nothing to lose by making enquiries about possible work opportunities, Enzo was fortunate to have the door answered by Anaru Kerei, owner of Wellington Abseiling Maintenance (WAM).

Enzo explains, “Here in New Zealand you have IRATA.  It’s like a course that is possible to do everywhere in the world.  With IRATA you can work everywhere in the world.  When Anaru told me that I was like “Alright, I’m going to look for that”.  He told me about this course place that is based in Plimmerton – TARA”.

“They were offering a course that was costing $2400, so that’s a pretty big amount.  I really wanted to invest that type of money to try changing my way of living.  I’ve been travelling for five years and stopped studying at 18.  I’ve got hospitality experience so it was my gateway to the world, to earn money.  But it was also a place where I got a little bit stuck because it’s like the only big knowledge that I got.  So everywhere in the world where I was travelling, my source of revenue was hospitality.  I didn’t feel like I wanted to keep going in this way.  I realised I didn’t want to live this life forever”.

Enrolling in TARA’s Level 1 Rope Access Technician course Enzo learned “… how to be safe on a rope, how to go up, how to go down.  You learn [about] the specificity of the forces, all the angles you can do with your rope.  What’s bad for the ropes, what’s good for them.  Just a big aspect of being at heights and safe.”  After completing the week long course, Enzo returned to WAM.

“The first day I met Anaru I asked, “Are you searching for workers?” and he was like “Yeah, we’re a bit short of workers at the moment” (with two workers overseas on extended stays).

“So I think I was kind of a replacement for WAM.  A little bit shortened time.  So I ask him “If I did the course would you employ me after that?”  And he was like “Yeah, if you do the course I will definitely employ you and we will talk about it”.  I was quite happy when he told me that.  So I did the course at the beginning of August, finished on the 11th and began with WAM on the 14th”.

WCL: Is this stage one of an ongoing qualification?

Enzo: It is. IRATA have a system of three different levels.  You’ve got level one.  That’s like dipping your toes.  Then if you want to pass your level two, you need to have a year of work in rope access, plus one thousand hours.

WCL: So it’s like an apprenticeship?

Enzo: Yes, it’s definitely like that.  From what I know about Level 2 it’s like knowing a bit more about how to rescue people.  The more you go higher, the more you go on level 2, level 3, the more knowledge you will have for rescuing people in different cases.

WCL: Are you going to go for your thousand hours?

Enzo: Oh yeah.

WCL: You won’t be doing all that in your time here, so is the work you are doing now laying a base for when you return to France?

Enzo: I’ve got a plan when I go back to France, in May.  I’m going to work taking care of the trekking path where I live, in the French Alps.  They need an abseiler.  Basically what we’re going to do is like rigging from trees and taking care of the path, making sure that everything is safe in the mountain area.  I’m happy to discover this part of abseiling because it’s in nature.  It’s like different step.

When I started abseiling I was like “Oh wow! You can do a job that you like and it’s outdoors.  That’s cool!”  The next one is to do a job that I like, that’s in nature.  So it’s getting closer to climbing.  And yeah, I’m definitely going to go deeper into abseiling.

WCL: Is this volunteer work or a paid position?

Enzo: It’s a paid position.  It’s like communal work.  And I think we’re working four days a week and it’s a team of ten people.  It goes from May through to September-October.

WCL: Then what happens in the off season?  Would you travel or look at working a contract in another country?

Enzo: My plan as far as I can see, is to do this next summer in France.  Then I would like to do some more diverse work in abseiling.  And try to catch some good contracts.  I would like to travel a bit more with this work.  It is definitely an easy way to make money and travel and do something I like.

I also realise that, with the people I met lately in Wellington, how good it is to be invested in ecology. I would like to, later, keep doing abseiling but being more meaningful to the planet.  And do also work that I like, but also with value, with a meaning behind it.  Not just doing a job for earning money but being fulfilled in a way of being like “Oh, that was a nice day, I was outside.  I did physical exercise”

WCL: Are you required to renew your qualifications every couple of years or will you need to do refresher courses?

Enzo: From what I remember, every three years if you don’t pass any new level, you need to do a refresh.  Because rules are changing quite often.  So yeah, every three years, if you didn’t upgrade your level of IRATA you need to do a refresh.  But if you do a course in between that, I think it’s all good.

WCL: What’s the tallest building you’ve been up?

Enzo: I would say the tallest building is 16 floors.  You do three metres per floor so it would be 50 metres.

WCL: What’s it like?  Tell me, as someone who doesn’t have a head for heights

Enzo: Actually when I go on high buildings like this I am always a bit scared.

WCL: But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Enzo: Yeah definitely.  I think it’s always scary when you arrive at a new building and it’s also scary to be trusting in the equipment.  People tell you “This is working, this is going to save your life” but in a human perspective you’re like, “You tell me this is going to save my life but I didn’t see that it can save my life”.

“You’ve got always this adrenaline coming through your body when you go to the edge and you go “That’s pretty high”

Going to the edge is like, not always the hardest part, but the thing that you need to improve because sometime you go to the edge with a bucket of paint or a bucket of water and soap so you need to make it clean.  At the same time it’s like the scariest moment of your day.

Yeah, it is always scary to go for the first time of the day through the other side but it’s a nice feeling.  I like it.

WCL: What do you like about working for WAM?

Enzo: It is just like a great, small business.  A family business.  And Anaru is just an amazing human.  He understands everyone in the business.  He made it a place where everyone feel good.  It’s like a second home.  It’s just great.  I think he did a really nice picking of employees in the business.  He’s got a really good team.  Everyday at work is always different and always good.  There’s younger people and older people, it’s a good range between 19 and 35.  So everyone is understanding of each other, because everyone is always in a happy vibe.  Everyone is carrying each other.

It’s also great because most of the time we work in teams of two.  So it’s really nice if you want to start knowing someone.  One day you are on a job with someone and the next day you are on another job with another person. It’s nice to get to know each one of them through the days and through the weeks.

Also Beth is working with Anaru and she’s like really, really calm and peaceful and bringing something really nice to WAM.

There are two women working there – Beth and Lynette.  I really like what they bring to WAM.

WCL: Do you think abseiling is perceived as a male occupation? 

Enzo: I think women don’t see it particularly as a career choice but at the same time I understand that in this world, this tradie world, [it] is really masculine.  Sometimes it can be hard for a woman to say alright “I’m going to step into this world and make it happen for me”.  [Of his colleague, Lynette] “I think it’s good that she got the courage to start in abseiling. She impress me so much”.

WCL:  It also means WAM have given her that environment in which to develop and that says a lot about them and their culture.

Enzo: I would say that WAM is really open minded.  And they give a chance to people.  And everyone is so natural.  You don’t have that hard culture of tradie.  It’s just a good place where everyone feels good and talks about everything.  Like when you arrive in the morning, there’s always small talk and it’s like a family.  It’s really great like that.

WCL: Would you recommend this as a job to a someone else who might be wondering if this is the right thing for them?

Enzo: I think so, yeah.

I think this is a shortcut to a really nice job for people [like me] who left school early and don’t know what they want to do.  I think abseiling is really nice because it’s so diverse.  There are so many different jobs through abseiling and yeah, it’s just great… The more I’m going to travel, the more I’m going to spread this thing of “Oh, you don’t know what to do?  You can do this.  It’s great”

“Always since I started climbing I try to involve as much people into climbing.  I’m going to do the same with abseiling.  Definitely”.

WCL would like to thank Enzo for his input into this blog piece along with the contribution of images.