Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

I will come again & conquer you because as a mountain you can't grow, but as a human, I can

I started to become more active and when I was at Auckland Grammar I went for the first time to the mountains. I went to Ruapehu and for the first time I saw snow. I had never seen snow before and for 10 days the group of us had a marvellous time.

I would have said that during the early days of my life there was never a moment when I wasn't fit. We worked extremely hard on the beekeeping line, and both my brother and I used to compete, particularly when we were collecting honey. We would each have an 80-pound box of honey and we would race up the hill on the Tuakau track and race back down. We just raced all the time, and we used to keep very fit indeed.

Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down.