I got bored and then joined the British SAS. It was five very exciting years of my life, and then I'd always had this passion for swimming, so started swimming around the world, in some of the most exotic and distant and dangerous locations.

I think every child in every country, not just South Africa, every year should go to a national park, and it should be part of their basic curriculum.

I'm one of the lucky people that, my job is my passion, is my hobby. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant: I truly feel that this is what I'm meant to do, to swim and to talk about protecting the environment, my two passions.

Very few things which are really worth achieving come easily. Sometimes they do, but most of the time you really have to work hard and cleverly.

We have to appreciate that we are part of nature, we must work with nature; the environment is our lifeline.

Sometimes we set boundaries for ourselves in life, or even worse, we allow others to do so. In many cases, these boundaries are just in our mind and need to be pushed away.

Britain has bred many great explorers, but they seem to get so little coverage compared to soccer and rugby players.