While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

It's not the moutain we conquer but ourselves.

I think my strengths perhaps are that I'm determined. I may not be the best climber in the world, but I do like to sort of succeed and so that tends to drive me on, as it were, and I don't give up too easily.

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.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

My mother really was the strength in our family. She would sort of keep us in line and I admired her very much .