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Video: Sir Edmund Hillary's obituaryKEY POINTS:
Edmund Hillary knew his 2007 visit to Antarctica would be his last adventure.
He wanted to savour every moment. He didn't want to miss anything. He didn't want to waste any time. And he certainly didn't want to go to sleep.
In January 2007, Sir Edmund Hillary flew to Antarctica to preside over 50th anniversary celebrations of the 1957 mission in which he founded Scott Base.
From the moment we took off from Christchurch on a vast American Globemaster military plane, Sir Ed displayed the enthusiasm of the young adventurer he still was at heart. He chatted delightedly to the US Air Force crew, creaking his way up the stairs to the cockpit to watch the plane touch down on the Pegasus Ice Runway, telling stories to the pilots, pointing out the landmarks.
The dangers of altitude sickness meant Sir Ed could no longer visit the mountains he loved so, but on the frozen continent, he could get close to nature, dangerously close, just as he liked.
When we landed on a brilliantly clear summer's day, Sir Ed put one foot on the snow, then the other, a frown of concentration on his face, his possum-fur hat slightly askew.
Only when both boots were firmly on the snow did he look up, sight Mt Erebus smoking silently on the horizon, and smile that famous toothsome, mouth-ajar grin.
"I'm thrilled," he said, "to come back, to see all the old mountains and to see everything that's been done."
Sir Ed was in Antarctica to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his famous trip to the ice, in 1957, when he set up Scott Base as part of the Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. His task was to lay supply depots for British explorer Sir Vivian 'Bunny' Fuchs, who was attempting to be the first man to cross the continent overland. Fuchs was starting his journey from the other side of Antarctica, below South America, and would establish Shackleton Base, make for the Pole and then proceed to Scott Base, collecting food and fuel from the depots Sir Ed and his men had laid.
Standing on that runway in 2007, he was asked if he imagined in 1957 he might one day be back. "No, I didn't even think I was going to be here, but it's great to be back," he said.
By his final Antarctic trip, Sir Ed had become rather mountainous himself - tall, dignified and somehow monumental. Most of the time, he looked strong and relatively healthy for a man of 87. The years had not slumped his tall body, or diminished the strength of his jawline.
He moved very slowly, partly because of the stiffness of his knees, partly because he could take no more than a few steps before being stopped by some admirer who wanted to chat.
With a reputation as a slightly grumpy old fellow, Sir Ed could be intimidating upon first encounter, but he turned out to be perpetually gracious. He didn't seem to mind being stopped for a handshake, and unlike so many famous people, he didn't behave as though he thought celebrity gave him licence to be rude to journalists.
When a reporter approached, Sir Ed was polite and thoughtful, leaning both hands on his walking stick and staring into the middle-distance as he answered questions.
What a transformation he must have undergone through his life, I thought. In his own memoirs, Sir Ed described himself as miserably shy, barely able to form sentences when speaking to strangers - and when those strangers were girls, barely able to speak at all.
Until climbing Everest, he had lived for himself, climbing mountains simply because he wanted to. As soon as he and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, he became somebody else, suddenly required to give speeches. For the rest of his life, this quiet man would not only have to converse with strangers regularly, he would have to think of interesting things to say when asked, at least once a day, questions like 'What do you think of Bournemouth?' and 'Was climbing Everest the best day of your life?'
Life must have loomed before him as an interminable round of garden parties and speaking tours - which is why Sir Ed started seeking fresh adventures. Of course, every new exploit created more fame, which in turn created more garden parties and speaking tours, and more encounters with enthusiastic well-wishers.
Genuine thrills, then, were to be treasured - and it was clear Sir Ed regarded his Antarctic return as a real joy.
There were speeches and ribbon-cuttings and formal ceremonies, but what Sir Ed really seemed to enjoy was sitting in the bar at Scott Base, surrounded by New Zealanders in Swanndris and woollen socks, drinking whisky and telling yarns.
He stayed at the base for a week, venturing outdoors only a few times for the ceremonies, and to travel by helicopter to visit the hut of explorer Ernest Shackleton at Cape Royds, about an hour's flight across the frozen Ross Sea.
Shackleton was Sir Ed's hero - he liked the way the Irish-born explorer had treated his men as equals rather than employees, and felt Shackletonw as better prepared for hte harshness of Antarctica than his rival, Robert Falcon Scott.
Sir Ed felt Scott was stuffy and ill-trained, and regarded Sir Vivian the same way.
"I think in the end my plans worked out rather more successfully than Bunny's," he said one night at Scott Base. "I often feel that perhaps Bunny was a Scott type of person, whereas I was a slightly more irresponsible sort of Shackleton type. I was happy to be that way."
There was a serious subtext to that 'irresponsible' line - the truth was that Shackleton was an enormously brave man who risked everything to ensure that the disasters engulfing his own adventure did not kill any of his men. Against enormous difficulty, Shackleton ensured his party made it home safely. Scott and his men died in the failed attempt to be first to the Pole - and although the debates about the mistakes and difficulties of Scott's journey have raged for a century, there was no doubt about Sir Ed's view. Scott, he felt, had been ill-prepared and too hidebound by hierarchy to cope with the onslaught of nature.
In 2007, Sir Ed spent his last night in Antarctica in an old A-frame hut, part of the original Scott Base complex, with a group of old friends. Throughout the night, they stayed up drinking and laughing, sitting on chairs out the front of the hut as the perpetual summer sun skimmed the horizon.
That basic hut was much more comfortable for Sir Ed than the heated, carpeted Scott Base, which in turn is a world away from the simple shacks he had built when founding the base in 1958.
Indeed, he found all the trappings of modern Antarctica a bit painful. "We never had all these vast quantities of clobber," Sir Ed grumbled one afternoon, as he wrestled to remove his enormous outdoor boots. "I don't quite know why we have all this junk." At outdoor ceremonies, he reluctantly pulled on thick gloves, then was heard to mumble that they made it too difficult to hold his speech notes. "Bugger," he barked into the microphone after dropping his walking-stick before commencing a speech. All the assembled dignitaries laughed in delight. Sir Ed laughed too.
It was also in Antarctica that Sir Ed mustered the energy for one final burst of political advocacy, urging the British government to commit some funds for the restoration of the antique huts of explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, which were rapidly decaying. Battered by nearly a century of wind and snow, the huts are being saved by a team of New Zealand and British researchers, led by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. At the time, the British Government had offered less than $300,000 towards the project, repeatedly refusing the Trust's request for an additional $9 million to complete the work.
"For me it is disappointing," Sir Ed said, sitting inside the 1908 Shackleton hut. "I've always enjoyed the British heroes I read about when I was young but to find now that these relics of a heroic age are barely supported by Britain is just a little bit disappointing."
After presiding at ceremonies marking the anniversary of the base and celebrating the strong links between the New Zealanders and the nearby US base, McMurdo Station, Sir Ed announced the launch of a new international leadership award in his name. The Hillary Institute, funded by Kathmandu clothing founder Jan Cameron, will offer an four-yearly prize of $1 million to a mid-career social entrepreneur or adventurer as a means of fostering inspirational work. To begin in 2011, the prize will be known as the Hillary Step, after the near-vertical route Sir Ed and Tenzing Norgay famously climbed to reach the summit of Everest in 1953.
In a postscript to the Antarctica visit, Sir Ed proved he still had the moral authority to get things done - later in 2007, Britain committed GBP250,000 (NZD692,000), and Ireland gave $100,000 for the huts' preservation.
