Hillary's feat has always been closely linked with Elizabeth II -- it was announced on the day of her coronation on June 2, 1953, and she knighted him soon after.
It is thought his ashes may be scattered on Auckland's Hauraki Gulf, after he said in one of his autobiographies that he would like to be "washed gently ashore maybe on the many pleasant beaches near the place where I was born."
"Then the full circle of my life will be complete," he wrote.
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