The people of New Zealand and the mountain Sherpas of Nepal joined Tuesday in Auckland at the state funeral of Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary, to honour a man loved and revered in both countries.

"He was a colossus. He was our hero," said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. "His extraordinary life has been an inspiration to our small nation and to so many beyond our shores, too."

Norbu Tenzing, eldest son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who reached the top of Mount Everest with Hillary in May 1953, said that Hillary's spirit "forever will live and protect the great mountain and the people he loved so much."

And Ang Rita Sherpa, chief administrative officer of the Himalayan Trust which Hillary set up to build schools and hospitals for the mountain people, told the service, "His loss to us is bigger and heavier than Mount Everest."

Hillary, who died on January 11 aged 88, was farewelled at what was reportedly New Zealand's largest-ever state funeral, an honour usually reserved for prime ministers and governors-general.

Screens were set up in cities and towns all over the country to watch a live telecast of the service at historic St Mary's Church in suburban Parnell, where Hillary's casket was taken after lying in state for nearly 24 hours at the city's Anglican Cathedral next door.

Before the start of the service, Sherpas laid traditional scarves across the New Zealand flag-draped casket, with an ice axe resting on top. The funeral began with the tolling of a bell from the Navy ship HMNZS Endeavour, which carried the great adventurer on his first expedition to the Antarctic in 1955.

The telecast was transmitted by satellite to Nepal and to New Zealand's Scott Base in the Antarctic, which Hillary helped establish.

About 200 people attended a separate service at the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine centre in the shadow of New Zealand's highest peak, Mount Cook (3,754-metres) where the great adventurer began his mountaineering career.

Mourners described the heavy rain that shrouded the mountain, forcing the service to be held indoors, as "tears from heaven," news reports said.

Norbu Tenzing and other Sherpa representatives who came to New Zealand for the service said that Hillary was revered in Nepal, where his Himalayan Trust built or funded 63 schools, after an elder said to him, "Our children have eyes, but they are blind."

Tenzing - whose father died in 1986 - told the service that the trust had also built two hospitals, a dozen clinics, bridges and water-supply facilities: "It's impossible to describe all he has done for us in Nepal.

"His love and dedication to the Sherpas was like that of a parent towards a child - absolutely unconditional. When Sherpas heard of his death, their grief spiralled into mourning only comparable to the loss of a parent."

Hillary's son Peter - who has also climbed Everest and told the congregation that "adventure was compulsory" in the family - said he discovered his powerful father's fragility for the first time in the Nepali capital Kathmandu in 1975 when his mother and sister died in a mountain plane crash.

Thousands of people queued for up to two hours throughout the night at the cathedral to pay their respects to Sir Ed, as he was known throughout New Zealand.

Mourners were led by his widow, Lady June Hillary, and included five members of the 1953 Everest expedition, including Jan (then James) Morris, correspondent for The Times of London, who broke the news of the successful ascent.

About 40 members of the New Zealand Alpine Club holding long- handled ice axes formed a guard of honour as Hillary's casket was carried out of the church, and students at a high school named after him performed a spirited Maori haka (or war dance), a traditional tribute of respect.

Thousands of Aucklanders defied rain to line the streets as the funeral cortege drove through the city before a private family cremation.