BICYCLE TOUR OF WORLD

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27876, 26 January 1956, Page 2

BICYCLE TOUR OF WORLD

Dunedin Nurse’s Journey HEAD-WIND ALTERS PLANS (From the London Correspondent ot ‘•The Press”) LONDON, January. When a Dunedin nurse, Miss Louise Sutherland, met a head-wind while cycling Devon and Cornwall in 1951, it virtually changed her life. She had come to Britain to see the country. Her journey to Devon on a bicycle she bought for £lO was part of that plan. On the way the headwind made the going extremely difficult so she turned and went with the wind instead of against it. She reached the coast and decided, on the spur of the moment, to cross to the Continent. That was the beginning of a journey that has been done by few persons. She toured througn the Continent on her bicycle, towing a little trailer containing her belongings. She went on to the Balkans, through the Middle East and into India. As the miles clicked up on her 3s 6d mileage meter she began to plan a trip by bicycle round the world. She was considering riding up through South-east Asia to Japan when a message from her ailing father in Dunedin, who was ill, took her back to New Zealand. She stayed there until November, 1954, with the ambition to complete her journey. She sailed for Vancouver, and spent five months cycling across the American Continent to New York. When the time came for Miss Sutherland to complete her journey to Britain her funds were low and it appeared as though she would not be able to take up her booking on the Queen Mary. Funds Low’ Then she told her story to millions on a television programme. The compere asked her some questions and a “lucky guess as Spainas the home of a famous painter” won her 200 dollars and her passage to Britain was secure. New she is back in London four-and-a-half years from the time she first left, her journey round the world by bicycle completed—without one. puncture. She has made her seventh television appearance and has been approached by a magazine about a feature story. Miss Sutherland is only sft lin and weighs 1081 b. Most of her journeys have been made alone and she has not felt loneliness on the road. It is when she finds herself in the big cities, like London, with board to find and jobs to get that her spirits are lowest. Although jobs have been difficult to obtain at times, she has nursed in Australia, England, Scotland. Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, India and Canada. She feels that a stenographer’s training would be the ideal for anyone contemplating a trip such as her own.

Travelling Not Dangerous Living and working in these various countries Miss Sutherland has found courtesy and assistance nearly everywhere. “The benefit of a trip like mine is in meeting the people,” she said. “This type of travelling is not as dangerous, in my experience anyway, as one is led to believe. I have had no trouble.”

Miss Sutherland’s travelling has been extended from 1949 until the present and her capital outlay has been about £2OO. She speaks only English and a smattering of Arabic as well as the international sign language, but expenses have been kept down by camping along the roads. She reports that Vancouver is the only place she has left with less money than when she arrived.