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Sir Edmund Hillary will join Prime Minister Helen Clark in Antarctica next week to take part in the 50th anniversary of Scott Base.
Sir Edmund led the New Zealand expedition that established Scott Base.
He went back to the base in 2004, saying then he hoped to go to the 50th anniversary of the New Zealand outpost in Antarctica.
Antarctica New Zealand and Sir Edmund's wife June have said he will be there. Lady Hillary, who has been to Antarctica before, said she was not going on this trip.
The group, including Helen Clark, is due to take the five-hour flight from Christchurch to Antarctica on January 18. They will be travelling on a United States C-17 Globemaster plane, and are due to return to Christchurch on January 22.
Sir Edmund, now 87, went back to Antarctica in 2004 to dedicate a new field centre, named in his honour, that is bigger than the entire base his team built in the late 1950s.
Three of the original buildings are still at Scott Base -- including the mess hut, or A Hut, that included the leader's office and the radio room.
"A" Hut was completed, dedicated and the base opened on January 20, 1957.
At the time, Sir Edmund had been asked to lead a supply support group for the British attempt, led by Dr Vivian Fuchs, of an overland crossing of Antarctica. Hillary laid the supply depots and got to the South Pole before Fuchs.
The base was used for expedition members, and also to support scientists as part of International Geophysical Year in 1957.
- NZPA
* Herald reporter Claire Harvey will be sending reports from Scott Base throughout the commemorations
