Television crews swamped the Saga Rose cruise ship before the retired dentist hit dry land - some five weeks after he had left his village in Hampshire in southern England.

Mr King-Turner and his New Zealand-born wife Doris, 89, battled to reach relatives waiting on Aotea Quay to greet them and later refused media requests for interviews.

'I think he's tired and has had enough, so we are blocking the media now at their request,' his stepdaughter Gabriel King-Turner told AFP. 'I asked him how he felt after his epic journey, and he said: 'Great relief'.'

Ms King-Turner, whose father shared the same surname as her stepfather, said the elderly immigrant had put up with unrelenting media hype in England.

Asked at the time why he was immigrating, he said: 'I think I possibly like wandering about a bit. I somehow thought that it might be rather fun to move to New Zealand.

'What's important is that when I'm 105, I don't want to be thinking 'I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102'.'

His stepdaughter said he felt free to leave England. 'Eric said to me that he had done enough for Britain,' she said.

'As a surgeon commander on the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable during World War II, he had helped to save New Zealand soldiers and has always been involved in community activities.'

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE