Cheers Ray,
I also take it the the lines below him were de-energised, which would to a degree explain the lack of a bucket truck.
As a note to our US friends, we don't as a rule use spikes here to climb poles, although I have struck the odd old pole without climbing studs and have had to take out the old climbing spikes, really hard on the legs if you aren't used to it!.
Most of our HV poles here are concrete (cement) these days with built in studs, wood is on the way out because of our high moisture atmosphere, although there are TONS of wooden poles all over NZ.
