It was the job that eventually took her away from Wanganui at about the age of 21, all the way up to Auckland, where she lived in a hostel for 20 months.
Now she works in a call centre for Vodafone, "listening to all the abuse".
Miss Garmonsway has come home for the holidays every year, except for one occasion when she went to South Africa with a friend, and one time when she couldn't make it down. She still managed to make it here for New Year, though.
When she's home, Miss Garmonsway divides her time between her separated parents, her favourite aunt, and a few close friends she has managed to stay in touch with despite the distance.
"Thank you, Facebook," she said.
For 90 per cent of her trips down, Miss Garmonsway would drive all the way from Auckland. "Plenty of sounds in the car, drive along, windows down, singing my lungs out - as you do."
The feeling in the lead-up to her annual trip home wasn't so much excitement as it was anticipation, she said.
"It's always good, looking forward to getting away, catching up with everyone again."
And, as her father, Bevan Garmonsway, noted: if she didn't come to visit she wouldn't get the big jar of beetroot he made for her every year.
