Her father, alone for the first time in 50 years, wanted to see his sister in New Zealand. The pair had met only once since World War II. He took a commercial flight while Ms Garratt came in the Mooney to fly him around NZ. She then decided to go home the long way, making a round-the-world trip which turned into a book and a fundraising mission.
She repeated the feat in her 2008 "Dash for a Cure", hoping the 8--day record would attract publicity to her cause.
"But the second one wasn't really fun. I wanted to do it again, but visit more countries and places with the objective of writing another book and raising even more money," she said.
Ms Garratt covers the costs of her journey so all donations - US$344,000 ($410,000) so far - go towards the search for a cure.
She describes motor neurone disease as "being entombed in your body". Although the brain remains active, sufferers slowly lose the ability to move, starting with their extremities, so they worsen from needing a walker to a wheelchair to being bedridden. They then lose the ability to speak and, three to five years later, die of respiratory failure.
The family came originally from the UK but Ms Garratt's father's work took him to the US when she was still a child; her aunt married a Kiwi and ended up in New Zealand.
While in Northland she visited her cousins Susan Horrobin in Whangarei and Richard Horrobin at Waimate North.
The toughest leg so far on this trip was from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, to Oman on the Arabian Peninsula. Unable to land in Yemen she flew 14 hours at night through storm-prone tropics to make her 7am landing slot.
"I limited the risk as much as I could and it was very doable ... but it was still a test of endurance. After 14 hours flying at night I was ready to fall asleep," she said.
Another tricky section was when her landing gear failed in Malaysia, forcing her to fly the next three legs to Perth with the Mooney's wheels down.
And her favourite country - she insists she doesn't say this everywhere - is "fantastic" New Zealand. "You have so few people here. Everyone waves, everyone's friendly, everyone's nice."
Ms Garratt was originally due to fly from Bay of Islands Airport to Tonga yesterday but delayed her departure until this morning to avoid thunderstorms at sea. Next she flies to Samoa, American Samoa, Kiribati and Hawaii before attempting the longest leg of her journey - a minimum 16-hour flight to California. She expects to be home on March 12. Go to www.alsworldflight.com to read her travel log and find out more.
