At the age of 19, having grown-up with cycling as a primary means of transport, she moved to Oamaru Hospital to begin four years of nursing training.
In 1945, the Otago Daily Times reported that Louise Sutherland had completed a 700 kilometres ride from Dunedin to Invercargill to visit an uncle and also cycled back, all at the beginning of a bitter Southland winter.
However, this journey was only the inspiration for a much bigger and longer trip through Europe, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and into India.
She had a chance encounter with a Canadian journalist who wrote about her and she received constant requests for paid TV and newspaper interviews that helped pay her expenses.
She reached the San Francisco Hospital in the Apurimac Valley the Amazon jungle, and worked there as a nurse for 18 months.
She raised funds and obtained New Zealand government support to buy a Hamilton Jet ambulance boat for the San Francisco hospital.
In 1978, despite still knowing relatively little about bicycle mechanics, even how to fix a puncture, Louise Sutherland set out alone on a 4,400 km ride through the Amazon jungle.
The self-planned trip was far rougher than any Tour de France, and something one Brazilian official publicly considered "Quite impossible!"
During her cycling travels and nursing career, Louise Sutherland demonstrated a belief in the best of human nature, especially of the indigenous peoples she met.
She spent many years raising money for medical assistance for people living in the Amazon Rainforest and these efforts were officially recognised.