Sir Edmund Hillary was never able to say exactly how he came to be the first man to conquer Mt Everest.
Because it was there, was the best he could offer by way of explanation.
"I can't give you any fresh answers to why a man climbs mountains. The majority still go just to climb them," he once said.
Indeed, Sir Edmund never set out to be the first man to set foot on the top of the world.
As he explained one day, it just sort of happened.
"I never had a vision to climb Mt Everest. As with everything else it just more or less grew," he told the US Academy of Achievement in 1991 in an expansive interview about his life.
Imbued with an irrepressible sense of adventure – and an unshakable restlessness – he was drawn to mountaineering from a young age, regularly escaping into New Zealand's rugged terrain from the time he was 16.
"I was extremely restless, and being restless can be an unhappy sort of existence, even though it often stimulated me into getting involved in energetic activities," he said.
"I certainly never was a happy teenager. I was not lonely, but I didn't really have many friends, and I used to go on long walks.
"I was a very keen walker and, as I walked along the roads and tracks around this countryside area, I'd be dreaming. My mind would be miles away and I would be slashing villains with swords and capturing beautiful maidens and doing all sorts of heroic things, just purely in my dreams.
"I really have no idea why I wanted to keep dashing on in these ways. I realised that it wasn't the normal attitude of the majority of young people. They were more interested in going to the movies or the beach or something or other. I really wasn't all that great on that sort of stuff. I just wanted to get out in the hills."
As Hillary matured, his climbing pursuits became more serious.
"I got more competent and I climbed harder mountains (in New Zealand), and I made a number of first ascents and I had a year in the European Alps and I climbed there," he said.
"Then we decided we'd like to go off to the Himalayas. Not Everest – we went off to the Indian Gahwal Himalayas and we were pretty successful.
"We climbed a half-a-dozen new peaks of well over 20,000 feet, and it really wasn't until then that we read in the paper that the British had got permission to do a reconnaissance to the south side of Mt Everest through Nepal which, up until those days, had been completely closed to foreigners.
"The idea that 'Gee it would be fun to go along on that reconnaissance,' certainly entered my mind, and we contacted the organisers in London and two of us were invited from the expedition to join up with the party and go into the south side of Mt Everest.
"You know, it's almost like a football team. If you're pretty competent and if you don't make any grave errors, once you're in, you're in. You're sort of appointed next time."
The Everest reconnaissance was a success and the group went back the next year for more successful climbs.
"Then in '53 we were invited to join the summit attempt. It was a growing process and a learning process.
"Never, in my early days, did I ever think of attempting to reach the summit of Mt Everest."
But that was to be his fate on May 29, 1953 when Hillary and his mountain guide Tenzing Norgay stunned the world with their feat.
He wrote of the pair's final ascent to the top of the world: "Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest.
"Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation – these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed," Hillary noted.
"But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed Hillary, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar (high school) and a no-hoper at university, first to the top of Everest. I just didn't believe it."
The pair spent just 15 minutes on the summit, as they were running short of oxygen but took the time to take a series of photos as proof that they had, indeed, stood at the top of the world.
Sir Edmund later recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat of "just climbing a mountain".
And he never placed himself among top mountaineers.
"I don't regard myself as a cracking good climber. I'm just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm and I'm good on ice," he once said.
While those 15 minutes defined his life and made him a hero and inspired climbers all over the world, humility was Sir Edmund's constant companion.
"I still regard adventure pretty much as a hobby to tell you the honest truth, and I think this approach to it keeps one refreshed almost," he said in 1991.
". . . I've always regarded myself in a sense as a competent amateur."
Humble as he was, there were hints too at the pride he kept so well hidden.
"I really like to enjoy my adventures. I get frightened to death on many, many occasions but, of course, fear can be, also, a stimulating factor.
"When (it) is a stimulating factor, then I think you can often extend yourself far more than you ever believed possible. And instead of being just a mediocre person, for a moment anyway, you become someone of considerable competence."
