Sir Edmund Hillary the adventurer and humanitarian, not only conquered the highest mountain but explored the bottom of the world and helped those most in need in the country that put him in the history books.
Edmund Hillary was born on July 20, 1919 in Auckland, the second of three children.
He grew up in Tuakau south of the big city and was educated at Auckland Grammar School. It was while on a school trip to Mt Ruapehu as a teenager that he fell in love with mountains.
Following school Hillary spent two years at university before joining his father and brother in the beekeeping business.
When war broke out in 1939, Hillary's father made a decision that Ed would not go to war - he was gazetted as producing food and therefore could not be called into the services.
That same year Hillary climbed his first mountain, Mount Olivier in the Southern Alps.
Despite his father's decision not to send him to war, in 1943 Ed decided to join the Air Force and trained to be a navigator. He became a catalina flying boat navigator in the Pacific but had to return to New Zealand after being badly burnt in an accident in Fiji.
Throughout the mid to late 1940s Ed spent much of his spare time climbing in the Southern Alps, including the highest mountain in New Zealand, Aoraki-Mt Cook, which he climbed for the first time in 1947.
Then in 1949 Hillary travelled to Europe and climbed in the Austrian and Swiss alps, no doubt in preparation for his major feat which was to follow four years later.
On May 29, 1953 Hillary along with sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest - the first men to do so. His famous words when he returned to his climbing companions: "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off."
The George was George Lowe, a fellow New Zealander on the expedition who had turned back as the sherpa and the conquering Kiwi trudged on.
The humble beekeeper set the world buzzing, becoming King of Everest on the eve of the Queen's coronation.
In July of that year his achievement was recognised with a knighthood.
Still coming down from his Everest high there was a personal high in 1953 when he married Louise.
Climbing was not Hillary's only adventurous feat.
Sir Ed set out to explore places many others feared to tread - the South Pole, the Ganges, the North Pole, there was even a hunt for the mythical Yeti.
In 1958 he led a Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic team to another adventuring first.
On Fergusson tractors Sir Ed and his team drove overland to the South Pole.
The 2,000 kilometre journey from Scott Base to the South Pole took 82 days and they arrived with about 15 miles of petrol left in their tanks.
Sir Ed and his team became the first men to reach the pole since Robert Falcon Scott, beating the British explorer Vivien Fuchs by 16 days in a legendary unscheduled race.
In 1961 Sir Ed returned to Himalaya's for an attempt at Mt Makalu without oxygen.
But the climb would signal the end of Hillary's mountaineering days. He became ill and decided that he did not have the stamina to continue as a high altitude climber.
During the expedition he asked the sherpas what he could do for their village. They replied that they needed their children to go to school. That request became the inspiration for his lifelong work - helping to improve the health and educational conditions of the Nepalese people.
The Himalayan Trust was set up to help Sir Ed's work in Nepal. In over 30 years his work helped to build 20 schools, two hospitals, several medical clinics and two airfields.
Hillary's family often returned to Nepal with him. His wife Louise and their three children all got to experience the place he adored.
But Nepal was the place that brought Hillary heartbreak along with his fame.
In 1975 Louise and the couple's 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a plane crash at a Kathmandu airstrip.
What followed were some of the darkest years of Sir Ed's life. He experienced depression and said it took two or three years to adjust to the fact that he had lost two members of his family.
Sir Ed eventually lifted himself, continuing his work building hospitals and schools in Nepal.
Then came a new career and a new love.
In 1984, the man who had done so much for New Zealand's relations with the rest of the world got a chance to continue that work in an official capacity.
In October of that year David Lange decided to reopen New Zealand's diplomatic post in India and appointed Hillary as High Commissioner.
He started in the role in 1985 and continued until 1989.
His official consort and companion in India was June Mulgrew, the widow of Sir Ed's friend and mountaineering companion Peter Mulgrew, who died in the Erebus air disaster.
In 1989 June and Sir Ed married.
While in India he was also reunited with his fellow Everest conqueror Tenzing Norgay, who died soon after.
In 1991, at the age of 72, Hillary's work with the Himalayan Trust led to a brush with death.
High in the Nepalese mountains, at a meeting discussing the trust's future projects he almost succumbed to altitude sickness.
TVNZ reporter Mark Sainsbury was with him when he was brought off the mountain.
Sir Ed was treated in a hospital he had helped get built.
In 2002, at 82, Hillary returned to Kathmandu to hand over the running of his trust to the sherpas.
The following year marked the 50th anniversary of his epic climb and Nepal made him an honorary citizen.
In 2003 of his historic climb, Sir Edmund said: "Time passes so quickly that I remember so clearly the actual climb up the mountain.
"Standing on the summit I think the main thing was it was a pretty good view. I looked across the valley at a very large mountain called makalu and even though I was standing on the top of the highest mountain in the world."
Another 50 year anniversary came in January 2007.
Sir Ed flew to Antarctica to mark his historic journey there and the establishment of Scott Base.
Eighty-seven-year old Sir Ed recounted: "I wondered if I was heading in the right direction and then suddenly there was a clearance in the drift snow and I saw straight ahead of us the little tent and that was one of the great moments of my life."
Hillary visited Nepal for the last time in April 2007 to see the work of his trust and to urge climbers to keep Everest clean.
But Sir Ed had a fall while there and when he returned home to New Zealand he was hospitalised.
His health then began to decline.
Sir Ed received much recognition during a distinguished life.
He was the only living person to appear on our bank notes and he walked alongside some of the 20th century's most influential figures.
He became one of 24 knights of Royalty's elite - the most noble order of the garter.
"As soon as I depart this mortal coil it has to be returned and given to the next person who takes my place," he said.
But finding someone to take Sir Ed's place won't be easy.
He has often been described as the perfect Kiwi - decent and humble.
Sir Edmund Hillary has said he wants to be remembered through actions not icons.
His great achievements as an adventurer and a humanitarian will
not be soon forgotten.
