Mount Everest is a very spiritual place, it's a beautiful mountain.

I do have spare time and I love to read, and I love just to go to a national park and just relax and just think. But most of the time, it's swimming or talking.

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 was asked to give a speech on the Everest swim, and during the Everest swim, I changed. I changed as a person, I honestly did. That mountain changed me, and I gave a speech about it for nine minutes.

What I'm asking people to do is to look at their lives, wherever they may be. I mean, you may be a housewife or a mother in Gauteng and you're driving your kid to school, you know, and you've got one kid in the back and you're driving 30 kilometres to school and 30 kilometres back, so 60 kilometres in a day, to take one child to school. Is there a possibility that you can put a few more kids, some friends' kids in the car, and start saving on those types of things?

I love swimming, swimming's my passion and I hope I swim until the last day of my life, so I really, really do enjoy swimming, but swimming for me is simply a way of carrying a message.

The businessmen of the world who are not taking environmental matters seriously are just wasting money, aside from damaging the environment it's wasting money and in this economic climate you just can't afford to do that.