Meet the people we've
worked with
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Turanga Health, Gisborne
We've worked with Māori health organisation Turanga Health since 2005 producing internal newsletters, advertorial, websites, annual reports, and news releases. A highlight was helping Turanga Health win the Community Excellence Category of the Westpac Gisborne Business Excellence Awards. turangahealth.co.nz |
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Three Rivers Medical
When Three Rivers Medical was created in July 2012 it became New Zealand's fifth largest medical centre. We've worked with Three Rivers Medical since 2013 recreating its website, managing its newspaper and radio advertising, and ensuring the waiting room info-tv information is up-to-date and interesting. 3rivers.co.nz |
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Eastland Port
Eastland Port is New Zealand's most efficient, and second largest, exporter of logs, and exports to countries including China, Korea, India and Japan. To prepare for an estimated five million tonnes of logs a year - plus other products - Eastland Port is developing a twin berth so two 200m long log ships can tie up at once. Redpath Communications is helping Eastland Port with its twin berth development project communications. twinberth.nz |
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Quality Roading and Services
Quality Roading and Services in Wairoa connects workers to their jobs, creates opportunities for the community, and protects it from an increasingly unpredictable natural environment. It's staff are the driving force behind the company's success and Redpath Communications helps tell the world. We manage the website, it's social media, and generate good news story for the media. qrs.co.nz |
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Te Ora Hou
Youth and community development organisation Te Ora Hou Te Tairāwhiti Trust wanted to develop locally-specific communication resources aimed at helping reduce sexual offending against Tairāwhiti children. The ‘Tiakina Tamarki: Be Someone a Child Can Turn’ created with Redpath Communications had two strands to its campaign: adverts on Māori and mainstream radio stations telling the audience why it’s important to talk with children about safety from sexual abuse, and a video launched across social media by film-maker Josh O'Neill. |
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Universal Engineering
Universal Engineering director Phil Matthews contacted us after becoming bogged down trying to write a 20-page entry for the Westpac Gisborne Business Excellence Awards. He knew what he wanted to say but he couldn’t get it down on paper. Coming from outside the business we drew out the unique characteristics of Universal Engineering transformed the detailed and passionate information into a well-written easy-to- understand document for the judges. Universal Engineering won the Westpac Gisborne Business Excellence Medium Business Excellence Trophy in 2013. |
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A hundred miles on foot | Northburn 100
DURING one of the toughest 100-mile races in the world, Gisborne’s Gavin Murphy overcomes fatigue and pain most of us couldn’t imagine. He runs or walks continuously and sees two sunrises without sleep. What on earth drives a man to move for two days non-stop, and can there really be any enjoyment? Hayley Redpath learns more.
SPOT 44-year-old Gavin Murphy jogging down Wainui Beach and you might not give him a second glance.
But consider he’s probably been running since 3am and suddenly you realise this easygoing bespectacled Gisborne business manager is a running extremist.
He’s that breed of athlete who relishes the feel of shredded legs and miles of agony, and embraces the rush of runs that last for hours, even days.
Last month Gavin had a crack at the Northburn 100, an event pitting athletes against 161 kilometres (100 miles) of barren Central Otago terrain that includes 10,000 metres of up and down.
That’s like climbing Mt Everest and then a bit more. It’s like setting off for a jog from Gisborne and not stopping until you get to Te Araroa, or Putorino if you’re heading south.
Midlife crisis
Gavin has always had a love of the outdoors, passed on to him by his parents.
But by his late-30s, busy with family and work, he wasn’t tramping, skiing, fishing, diving and hunting as much as he liked, and even jogging around town caused niggly injuries. Inertia was setting in.
That was until his 40th birthday, when he had an idea . . . perhaps he could try running in the wild.
“I’ve always enjoyed moving fast in the New Zealand bush, so I looked at trail running,” he says.
“I started experimenting with it, obsessing a bit.”
Captivated, Gavin downloaded ultra-running books, studied nutrition, and took up CrossFit for strength.
Trail running was good for vanity and sanity. He lost weight, loved the new “community” he was part of, and found the exercise helped untangle his brain.
Running became his happy place and, as it turned out, he was quite good. He had top-three placings in a few long-distance races and finished well at the international and very competitive 100-kilometre Tarawera Ultramarathon.
Wife Diane Murphy could only sit back and smile.
“When he hit 40 and had a midlife crisis, I could see the new passion in him and what he wanted to achieve.”
And by then, what he wanted to achieve was the Northburn 100.
Saturday 6am start
The annual Northburn 100 ultramarathon near Cromwell is a sufferfest that has been held six times in seven years. Only two-thirds of people who start have finished.
Because of its length, the race begins at 6am on Saturday, continues through the day and night, and well into Sunday for most, Monday for some. You get 48 hours to complete it.
Athletes run and walk over a 13,500-hectare high country station. They traverse tussock tops, sheep trails and scree slopes in what was designed to be one of the toughest 100-milers in the world.
During the event, athletes return to the start/finish line as they complete three loops. Loops 1 and 2 are 50km, and Loop 3, which includes the Loop of Despair, is 60km of hell.
Gavin ran 80 to 120km a week to get ready, and says training was similar to that for a marathon. Just one thing was different . . . “I would do one very long run a week — anything from four to 12 hours. I tend to get reasonably absorbed in anything I do!”
Support crew
An engineering consultant by day, by night wife Diane operates a catering kitchen out of her little blue tent near the Northburn 100 start/finish line. She’s assisted by Gavin’s parents who’ve travelled from Blenheim to support their son.
Baked beans and coffee are kept warm on the camp stove and chicken soup, pie, blueberries, watermelon and rolls are close by.
“I don’t sleep much,” says Diane. “There’s always something to do, or something going on at the main tent.”
During the night she sees participants arrive on orange stretchers, and others disappear into the medical tent never to reappear on her watch.
Despite the event’s whiz-bang tracking system, there’s always an element of doubt as to when Gavin will arrive.
But arrive he finally does, and there’s a flurry of activity as Diane administers food, helps with a sock change and replenishes high-calorie snacks and water.
She updates him on their two school-age daughters back in Gisborne, and the progress of fellow athletes, but within minutes he’s out running again.
“I don’t normally worry about the events he does, but it’s difficult not to at Northburn as it’s such a gruelling race.
“To be honest, I worry more about him driving home after remote training runs. It’s just that I know the third and final loop of Northburn is evil.”
She’s comforted that Gavin has a pacer during the darkest hours of this last loop.
She begins the long wait for the next time she’ll see her husband.
Tough guy
Pacer Jonno Kingsford reckons Gavin is a tough bastard. The affable Napier engineer joins Gavin at the 120km mark and immediately lifts Gavin’s mood.
A pacer is another runner, not registered for the race, who accompanies a competitor for a while to keep them moving, safe, and in good spirits.
Jonno will help with the meat grinder of a third loop that includes more night running, Mt Horn, cliffs, a water race, and a bleary second day still on the run.
Gavin has run much of the night on his own, catching occasional flashes of someone’s headlamp in the valley.
At 3am he veers off course accidentally, and another time he and a fellow runner scoop up a woman they find sleeping on the track.
“Your first rule is to make sure your fellow athletes are all right and she was slurry. The sleep monster had got her. I told her it was three kilometres to the next aid station and to tuck in behind us.”
Near-vertical pitches
Gavin meets Jonno at the bottom of the Loop of Despair. The trail ahead is dark and strewn with rocks so Jonno takes the lead to give Gavin a break from thinking about every footfall. Gavin fixates on his mate’s grey shoes and replicates his every step.
They lean into the final summit and near-vertical pitches force them to push their knees down with their hands. It’s an eerie environment. The moon peeps out of the inky darkness and the unseen terrain offers a sense of “bigness” they feel rather than see.
Each crunchy step is a step closer to finishing but the challenges of moving for 24 hours are taking their toll.
Gavin’s heart rate is elevated, reducing its efficiency; his body temperature has dropped and blisters form on his toes; destroyed leg muscle fibres filter into his bloodstream; his stomach rebels against the high-sugar snacks; his elbows ache from using walking poles; and his knees and glutes are screaming. Massive winds add to the challenge.
“It’s fair to say it’s a tentative period but he just gets on and does it,” says Jonno.
“He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t crack. There’s none of this weaving or hallucinating. He just stays determined.”
Gavin says there’s no secret to how he continues to move . . . he simply recites a checklist. When did I last eat? When did I last drink? When did I last pee? When did I last see a marker? Push replay.
“You have to run slightly within yourself, staying inside your limits. I don’t actually put myself in a place where I can red-line.”
And Gavin draws mental strength from his surrounds.
“There’s a certain buzz from being on the side of a mountain at 4am trying to get something done.”
Cheek-on-cheek action
Daybreak is a magic time for an ultra runner. Something miraculous happens, and after feeling rubbish for most of the night runners start to feel human again.
The sun rises quickly, illuminating Lake Dunstan and surrounding hills. Gavin gets runner’s high — that feel-good fix runners can experience near the end of hard runs — and he trusts he’s going to finish.
Gavin and Jonno pick up the pace and by midmorning they’re hauling down Mt Horn with just a “cheeky half-marathon” to go.
And so it is a crushing blow that now, at the rear end of the race, it is Gavin’s rear end that is hurting.
Gavin has the not-uncommon problem of chaffing, and that can spell the end of anyone’s ultramarathon attempt.
The irony that out in this vast wilderness something so small and out of sight might prove his undoing isn’t lost on him.
“I needed merciful relief.”
The hot cheek-on-cheek action begins to seriously take hold and the stinging is intolerable.
“I’d run out of chaff cream and I’d already put up with it for 60 kilometres.”
Jonno presents a solution.
“You got any chapstick mate?”
Out there in the mountains, with alpine fields filled with thyme and fast-flowing rivers below, Jonno turns away as Gavin makes multiple stick-to-cheek applications.
“No person wants to see that,” says Jonno.
In sight of the end
The slick of chapstick does the trick and that’s not the only sense of relief. Diane has tracked Gavin through the night and decides to spur him on 12km from the end — before nipping back in time to see him finish.
Gavin: “She came up that hill . . . it was totally unexpected”.
“Ultramarathons are a largely selfish sport and Diane has been absolutely amazing through all of this so it was great to see her.”
The trio are united and on the spur of the moment Jonno asks Diane how she feels about running the last leg.
“I won’t be able to keep up with him.”
“Yes you will. He’s just done 148 kilometres.”
And with that, Jonno hands Diane some running kit and dashes off.
“Don’t use his chapstick” he yells back down the track.
His spirits boosted, Gavin’s stride flows smoothly and a profound feeling of wellbeing arrives.
“My high point of the entire event was running that last 12 kilometres with Di.
“I couldn’t do it without Di. I wouldn’t eat properly and I couldn’t train all those hours away from the family. I would struggle to be organised at aid stations. I wouldn’t actually make it to the start line without her blessing and her ability to run the entire household. She should probably put her foot down.”
Heading towards the finish line, Diane suggests Gavin be the one to put his foot down. She tells him he’ll meet his finish time goal if he speeds up a little. Gavin obliges and gives a last push, all the while thinking about when he can stop.
And so it is, that just before lunch on Sunday, March 19, Gavin Murphy arrives at the Northburn 100 finish line, 30 hours, 45 minutes and 31 seconds after he left.
He’s 19th across the line, an hour ahead of the next man. The winner has been home 10 hours.
Live to run
The relief is immense and there are hugs and kisses all round before Diane helps get his shoes off and Gavin lies down in the finishers’ tent.
He rests his feet on a chair, forcing blood back to his core and for the first time in two days his legs get a reprieve.
“It’s so satisfying. You’re so relieved it’s over and just about the only good thing you can think of right then is knowing you have finished, and knowing you don’t have to run any more. It feels bloody good.
“I had my eyes closed but I knew my mum was hovering around fussing. She doesn’t overly like me doing this particular event.”
Recovery is slow, and for 12 hours Diane doesn’t take her eyes off Gavin as he gets the shakes and his temperature peaks and dips.
He sleeps four hours in the tent before Diane drives him to their rented house in Cromwell.
That night the sweats continue. It’ll take a month before his body fully recovers and he’ll sleep through the night.
Happiness is . . .
Jonno says it’s a testament to Gavin’s grit that he’s done the event . . . twice.
“Distance running teaches people a lot about themselves and how to tackle tough situations. Gavin’s got that level of resolve.”
Gavin takes a simpler view.
“It’s a brutal but fantastic event and I get a great sense of satisfaction.”
The desire to quit mid-race has never crept over him.
“You read all the stories about hallucinations and a semi-drug effect, but the previous year I just ran it, and finished.”
“Part of the reason I went back was to see if I did end up having a bad experience. But I didn’t. It just didn’t happen.
“I went up that Loop of Despair twice — once in daylight and once at 4am. I think I was struggling a bit then, but that’s it. “
Gavin isn’t surprised only 57 of the 87 athletes who started this year finished the event.
“You don’t run it, you survive it, but I believe there’s more danger sitting at a computer the rest of your life than doing what I’ve done.
“I think human beings were born to move in big, strong, solid movements across the countryside. The secret to happiness is right at your feet.”
But consider he’s probably been running since 3am and suddenly you realise this easygoing bespectacled Gisborne business manager is a running extremist.
He’s that breed of athlete who relishes the feel of shredded legs and miles of agony, and embraces the rush of runs that last for hours, even days.
Last month Gavin had a crack at the Northburn 100, an event pitting athletes against 161 kilometres (100 miles) of barren Central Otago terrain that includes 10,000 metres of up and down.
That’s like climbing Mt Everest and then a bit more. It’s like setting off for a jog from Gisborne and not stopping until you get to Te Araroa, or Putorino if you’re heading south.
Midlife crisis
Gavin has always had a love of the outdoors, passed on to him by his parents.
But by his late-30s, busy with family and work, he wasn’t tramping, skiing, fishing, diving and hunting as much as he liked, and even jogging around town caused niggly injuries. Inertia was setting in.
That was until his 40th birthday, when he had an idea . . . perhaps he could try running in the wild.
“I’ve always enjoyed moving fast in the New Zealand bush, so I looked at trail running,” he says.
“I started experimenting with it, obsessing a bit.”
Captivated, Gavin downloaded ultra-running books, studied nutrition, and took up CrossFit for strength.
Trail running was good for vanity and sanity. He lost weight, loved the new “community” he was part of, and found the exercise helped untangle his brain.
Running became his happy place and, as it turned out, he was quite good. He had top-three placings in a few long-distance races and finished well at the international and very competitive 100-kilometre Tarawera Ultramarathon.
Wife Diane Murphy could only sit back and smile.
“When he hit 40 and had a midlife crisis, I could see the new passion in him and what he wanted to achieve.”
And by then, what he wanted to achieve was the Northburn 100.
Saturday 6am start
The annual Northburn 100 ultramarathon near Cromwell is a sufferfest that has been held six times in seven years. Only two-thirds of people who start have finished.
Because of its length, the race begins at 6am on Saturday, continues through the day and night, and well into Sunday for most, Monday for some. You get 48 hours to complete it.
Athletes run and walk over a 13,500-hectare high country station. They traverse tussock tops, sheep trails and scree slopes in what was designed to be one of the toughest 100-milers in the world.
During the event, athletes return to the start/finish line as they complete three loops. Loops 1 and 2 are 50km, and Loop 3, which includes the Loop of Despair, is 60km of hell.
Gavin ran 80 to 120km a week to get ready, and says training was similar to that for a marathon. Just one thing was different . . . “I would do one very long run a week — anything from four to 12 hours. I tend to get reasonably absorbed in anything I do!”
Support crew
An engineering consultant by day, by night wife Diane operates a catering kitchen out of her little blue tent near the Northburn 100 start/finish line. She’s assisted by Gavin’s parents who’ve travelled from Blenheim to support their son.
Baked beans and coffee are kept warm on the camp stove and chicken soup, pie, blueberries, watermelon and rolls are close by.
“I don’t sleep much,” says Diane. “There’s always something to do, or something going on at the main tent.”
During the night she sees participants arrive on orange stretchers, and others disappear into the medical tent never to reappear on her watch.
Despite the event’s whiz-bang tracking system, there’s always an element of doubt as to when Gavin will arrive.
But arrive he finally does, and there’s a flurry of activity as Diane administers food, helps with a sock change and replenishes high-calorie snacks and water.
She updates him on their two school-age daughters back in Gisborne, and the progress of fellow athletes, but within minutes he’s out running again.
“I don’t normally worry about the events he does, but it’s difficult not to at Northburn as it’s such a gruelling race.
“To be honest, I worry more about him driving home after remote training runs. It’s just that I know the third and final loop of Northburn is evil.”
She’s comforted that Gavin has a pacer during the darkest hours of this last loop.
She begins the long wait for the next time she’ll see her husband.
Tough guy
Pacer Jonno Kingsford reckons Gavin is a tough bastard. The affable Napier engineer joins Gavin at the 120km mark and immediately lifts Gavin’s mood.
A pacer is another runner, not registered for the race, who accompanies a competitor for a while to keep them moving, safe, and in good spirits.
Jonno will help with the meat grinder of a third loop that includes more night running, Mt Horn, cliffs, a water race, and a bleary second day still on the run.
Gavin has run much of the night on his own, catching occasional flashes of someone’s headlamp in the valley.
At 3am he veers off course accidentally, and another time he and a fellow runner scoop up a woman they find sleeping on the track.
“Your first rule is to make sure your fellow athletes are all right and she was slurry. The sleep monster had got her. I told her it was three kilometres to the next aid station and to tuck in behind us.”
Near-vertical pitches
Gavin meets Jonno at the bottom of the Loop of Despair. The trail ahead is dark and strewn with rocks so Jonno takes the lead to give Gavin a break from thinking about every footfall. Gavin fixates on his mate’s grey shoes and replicates his every step.
They lean into the final summit and near-vertical pitches force them to push their knees down with their hands. It’s an eerie environment. The moon peeps out of the inky darkness and the unseen terrain offers a sense of “bigness” they feel rather than see.
Each crunchy step is a step closer to finishing but the challenges of moving for 24 hours are taking their toll.
Gavin’s heart rate is elevated, reducing its efficiency; his body temperature has dropped and blisters form on his toes; destroyed leg muscle fibres filter into his bloodstream; his stomach rebels against the high-sugar snacks; his elbows ache from using walking poles; and his knees and glutes are screaming. Massive winds add to the challenge.
“It’s fair to say it’s a tentative period but he just gets on and does it,” says Jonno.
“He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t crack. There’s none of this weaving or hallucinating. He just stays determined.”
Gavin says there’s no secret to how he continues to move . . . he simply recites a checklist. When did I last eat? When did I last drink? When did I last pee? When did I last see a marker? Push replay.
“You have to run slightly within yourself, staying inside your limits. I don’t actually put myself in a place where I can red-line.”
And Gavin draws mental strength from his surrounds.
“There’s a certain buzz from being on the side of a mountain at 4am trying to get something done.”
Cheek-on-cheek action
Daybreak is a magic time for an ultra runner. Something miraculous happens, and after feeling rubbish for most of the night runners start to feel human again.
The sun rises quickly, illuminating Lake Dunstan and surrounding hills. Gavin gets runner’s high — that feel-good fix runners can experience near the end of hard runs — and he trusts he’s going to finish.
Gavin and Jonno pick up the pace and by midmorning they’re hauling down Mt Horn with just a “cheeky half-marathon” to go.
And so it is a crushing blow that now, at the rear end of the race, it is Gavin’s rear end that is hurting.
Gavin has the not-uncommon problem of chaffing, and that can spell the end of anyone’s ultramarathon attempt.
The irony that out in this vast wilderness something so small and out of sight might prove his undoing isn’t lost on him.
“I needed merciful relief.”
The hot cheek-on-cheek action begins to seriously take hold and the stinging is intolerable.
“I’d run out of chaff cream and I’d already put up with it for 60 kilometres.”
Jonno presents a solution.
“You got any chapstick mate?”
Out there in the mountains, with alpine fields filled with thyme and fast-flowing rivers below, Jonno turns away as Gavin makes multiple stick-to-cheek applications.
“No person wants to see that,” says Jonno.
In sight of the end
The slick of chapstick does the trick and that’s not the only sense of relief. Diane has tracked Gavin through the night and decides to spur him on 12km from the end — before nipping back in time to see him finish.
Gavin: “She came up that hill . . . it was totally unexpected”.
“Ultramarathons are a largely selfish sport and Diane has been absolutely amazing through all of this so it was great to see her.”
The trio are united and on the spur of the moment Jonno asks Diane how she feels about running the last leg.
“I won’t be able to keep up with him.”
“Yes you will. He’s just done 148 kilometres.”
And with that, Jonno hands Diane some running kit and dashes off.
“Don’t use his chapstick” he yells back down the track.
His spirits boosted, Gavin’s stride flows smoothly and a profound feeling of wellbeing arrives.
“My high point of the entire event was running that last 12 kilometres with Di.
“I couldn’t do it without Di. I wouldn’t eat properly and I couldn’t train all those hours away from the family. I would struggle to be organised at aid stations. I wouldn’t actually make it to the start line without her blessing and her ability to run the entire household. She should probably put her foot down.”
Heading towards the finish line, Diane suggests Gavin be the one to put his foot down. She tells him he’ll meet his finish time goal if he speeds up a little. Gavin obliges and gives a last push, all the while thinking about when he can stop.
And so it is, that just before lunch on Sunday, March 19, Gavin Murphy arrives at the Northburn 100 finish line, 30 hours, 45 minutes and 31 seconds after he left.
He’s 19th across the line, an hour ahead of the next man. The winner has been home 10 hours.
Live to run
The relief is immense and there are hugs and kisses all round before Diane helps get his shoes off and Gavin lies down in the finishers’ tent.
He rests his feet on a chair, forcing blood back to his core and for the first time in two days his legs get a reprieve.
“It’s so satisfying. You’re so relieved it’s over and just about the only good thing you can think of right then is knowing you have finished, and knowing you don’t have to run any more. It feels bloody good.
“I had my eyes closed but I knew my mum was hovering around fussing. She doesn’t overly like me doing this particular event.”
Recovery is slow, and for 12 hours Diane doesn’t take her eyes off Gavin as he gets the shakes and his temperature peaks and dips.
He sleeps four hours in the tent before Diane drives him to their rented house in Cromwell.
That night the sweats continue. It’ll take a month before his body fully recovers and he’ll sleep through the night.
Happiness is . . .
Jonno says it’s a testament to Gavin’s grit that he’s done the event . . . twice.
“Distance running teaches people a lot about themselves and how to tackle tough situations. Gavin’s got that level of resolve.”
Gavin takes a simpler view.
“It’s a brutal but fantastic event and I get a great sense of satisfaction.”
The desire to quit mid-race has never crept over him.
“You read all the stories about hallucinations and a semi-drug effect, but the previous year I just ran it, and finished.”
“Part of the reason I went back was to see if I did end up having a bad experience. But I didn’t. It just didn’t happen.
“I went up that Loop of Despair twice — once in daylight and once at 4am. I think I was struggling a bit then, but that’s it. “
Gavin isn’t surprised only 57 of the 87 athletes who started this year finished the event.
“You don’t run it, you survive it, but I believe there’s more danger sitting at a computer the rest of your life than doing what I’ve done.
“I think human beings were born to move in big, strong, solid movements across the countryside. The secret to happiness is right at your feet.”
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Previous and ongoing clients include the Ministry of Health, Green Prescription, Turanganui Primary Health Organisation, Diesel Head, Midlands Health, Te Hā 1769-2019 Sestercentennial Trust, and Waikato Regional Council.
