Meda McKenzie

Meda-Therese McKenzie, generally known as Meda McKenzie, is a former New Zealand long-distance swimmer, who was inducted into the New [Zealand Sports Hall of Fame] in 1996.
At fifteen she swam Cook Strait, and later swam it in the opposite direction. She also swam Foveaux Strait; and in England the English Channel and a double crossing of the Bristol Channel.
After retiring to raise two children, she returned after five years to swim across Lake Erie in Canada, and two firsts: the first double crossing of Cook Strait by a woman and a circumnavigation of Rarotonga.
In the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours, McKenzie was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for being the first New Zealand woman to swim Cook Strait and the first person to swim Cook Strait in both directions.