Wellington: The ashes of Sir Edmund Hillary, the renowned adventurer who became the first to conquer Mount Everest, were scattered into the sea by his family on Friday in a private ceremony off his native New Zealand, an associate said.
The shipboard ceremony fulfilled the wishes of Hillary, who once wrote that he had spent so much of his life in mountains, he preferred to be buried at sea.
The humble beekeeper, who climbed the world's highest peak in 1953 and also led expeditions to such far-flung locales as the Ganges River and Antarctica, died in January at age 88.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark joined Hillary's wife, June, and his two children for the ceremony, said John Lister, chief executive of the Spirit of Adventure Trust. Hillary was patron of the youth trust.
The ashes were scattered from aboard the sailing vessel "Spirit of New Zealand" in the Hauraki Gulf near the northern city of Auckland Hillary's home for much of his life.
The family requested privacy for the ceremony and only about 30 guests were on the ship, Lister said.
In his book View From the Summit, Hillary wrote that he did not want his final resting place to be in some crevasse on a mountain, observing that he had "been down too many of them for that to have much appeal".
Instead he wanted his ashes to be "spread on the beautiful waters of Auckland's Hauraki Gulf to be washed gently ashore" on the beaches near his birthplace.
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