Last year, we hinted at the return of the Kalahari, one of the most sought-after and interesting watches we’ve made. I wanted to give an update on that project.

To catch those of you up that have never heard of the Kalahari, this was a desert military tool watch we launched on Kickstarter in 2018. It was inspired by the sands of the Kalahari Desert, a place that’s beautiful, desolate, and very close to the heart of many Southern Africans.

KALAHARI

First off, it is definitely happening!

We’ve taken a bit longer to nail down the engineering, as there are a few major changes from a technical perspective. From a visual perspective, it will look very close to the original. We’ll offer it in the same four colourways as the original Kalahari, essentially two dial variants(full-lume sand and black) and two case finishes (bead-blasted steel and DLC-coated).

The case will be thinner (14.45mm vs 15.10mm) and smaller (43mm vs 44mm). Thats as small as we could get it while still keeping the same functionality and features as the original. We’ve added drilled lugs to make strap changes easier.

For long-time fan of the brand and professional pilot Francois Allison, this change made the Kruger ideal for use as a mission timer. Combined with the lightweight titanium case, double AR-coated crystal, and legible, high contrast dial, the Kruger ticked all the boxes for Francois.

Below is a typical day in the life of a pilot, featuring the Kruger ‘A’ chronograph.

We were running a bit late in rainy Durban conditions, but that didn’t bother the Kruger. Countdown bezel set — 10 minutes to departure! So easy to read. Set the bezel, read time remaining. Gotta love a proper mission timer.

Fast forward to cruise: exactly one hour later, the sunset reflected off the sapphire crystal — incredible. That’s when I noticed the sun setting directly over the Drakensberg to our left, which put the Kruger National Park off in the distance to our right. There we were, right between the Drakensberg and the Kruger. Fancy that. Time for a few more shots as the lume took its last bit of charge before our descent into Jo’burg.

After the approach briefing, down into the clouds we went. The lume is super easy to read in a dark cockpit.

Thank you Francois for sending this in. Enjoy taking your Kruger to new heights!

Kia kaha.

Mike

The plight of rhino poaching

Southern Africa is home to the vast majority of the world’s remaining rhinos, with around 80% of the population in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. South Africa alone holds 70% of the global population, particularly in an area known as the Greater Kruger. 

Despite international conservation efforts and growing public awareness, rhino poaching remains a critical issue, driven by global demand for rhino horn, enabled by sophisticated criminal networks and conducted by poachers. In countries like China and Vietnam, it is believed that rhino horn has incredible medicinal properties, but the reality is that it is nothing more than keratin, the same material makeup as our fingernails.

Since the early 2010s, rhino poaching surged dramatically. In South Africa, the number of rhinos killed rose from just 13 in 2007 to over 1,200 in 2014. In 2024, 420 rhinos were poached in South Africa, 320 of those from state-owned properties (Source: International Rhino Foundation). While poaching numbers are declining, rhino breeding in the wild still has a long way to go to recover from the last 15 years of poaching. 

Who is GKEPF?

Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation (GKEPF) was established in direct response to the rhino poaching crisis to strategically support its member reserves in combating wildlife crime throughout the Greater Kruger region. To stem the tide, there is crucial work to be done to both prevent poaching and to protect the welfare of vulnerable and threatened wildlife. GKEPF provides a platform for collaboration and cooperation on strategic interventions to address poaching and its root causes, bringing together the efforts of various stakeholders united by a shared common interest. 

While poaching efforts are intensifying, counter-poaching actions are becoming increasingly more effective and sophisticated. In just a few years, GKEPF’s involvement in anti-poaching interventions has resulted in the prevention of many poaching attempts. GKEPF’s holistic approach to mitigate poaching includes successfully rolling-out the physical placement of numerous technologies, providing operational support, establishing reporting systems for strategic sharing of information, facilitating training, and building relationships with surrounding communities in the area through their members and partners.

Please follow GKEPF on Instagram and Facebook and please feel free to donate to the cause.

Movement

The automatic version will be using the Valjoux/ETA 7750, which has an asymmetrical dial layout. It is an expensive movement, so we will only be making 50pcs. It is also a very thick movement at 7.9mm. We had to make some changes to the case to get it as thin as possible while staying true to our tool watch roots. As such, the water resistance of the watch has been reduced to 100m (down from 300m). This change is across both the mechaquartz and auto versions. The mechaquartz movements will be the TMI VK67 and VK63, same as last time.

Case

The mid case for both versions will be the same, while the bezel and case back will differ for the auto version giving it the extra clearance for the movement. Dimensions are as follows:

• Diameter: 44mm at the bezel
• Thickness: (VK Mechaquartz versions) 12.45mm, (7750 auto version) 15.6mm
• Lugs: 22mm
• Lug to lug: 49.5mm

There was some feedback to make it smaller, but the majority of you said to keep it the same size. Possibly in the future, we can do a fixed bezel version, which would reduce the size dramatically. Important to note – the thickness of the mechaquartz version (12.45mm) is 1.75mm less than previously. Coming back to the water resistance, the pushers will have triple o-ring gaskets, allowing for the use of the chrono function while in the water. Case back and crown are screw down. Another detail to mention is the drilled lugs. This will help with the attachment of certain 3rd party straps.

As mentioned before, the case will follow in the line of the Peregrine and Aoraki, but will have a bead blasted finish. Titanium grade 2 for the material with a 1200HV hardness coating. We redesigned the crown lugs for a more simplified yet aggressive look. The case back will still have the white rhino image. I’ll talk more about the collaboration with the anti-poaching rangers who we’ll be supporting in a future post.

Bezel

For the bezel, it will be 60-click bi-directional with a detent mechanism, which is like a little piston pushing upwards on the bezel against the ratchet teeth on the underside of the bezel. We went with titanium for the bezel too. I’m a little concerned that the action will feel gritty, being titanium on titanium, but we’ll wait and see. The insert will be black ceramic again, but this time with a brushed finish. This should give it a darker appearance more close to the black of the dial. There will be THREE bezel insert options: ‘diver’, ‘count down’ and ‘timezone’.

Dial

The dial will be a single layer with printed markers and Arabics. The black dials will have recessed sub-dials with a concentric rings texture. This detail is not possible on the full-lume versions, as the luminous paint can not be applied in recessed areas. One side effect of a thinner dial, which I am excited about, is a shallower date window. This will mean there is less occlusion when viewing the date from an angle, a win for legibility.

Crystal

The double domed crusytal will have AR coating on both sides. This is going to drastically reduce reflections when viewing outdoors, further enhancing out commitment to making the best affordable outdoor adventure watches.

Variations

We’ll be offering 9 variations of the Kruger, including the auto version. When you add in the option to choose your bezel type, that makes it 27 variations. Unfortunately, the sand coloured dial version I was toying with didn’t make the cut.

I’m considering building a customiser, so when you order your Kruger, you’ll be able to choose:

• Movement – VK67, VK63, 7750
• Case finish – blasted titanium, DLC coated titanium
• Dial colour – black, full-lume white
• Bezel insert – diver, countdown, timezone
• Strap/bracelet – bracelet, leather

Strap/Bracelet

The bracelet design will stay the same as V1, with a 3-link hexad style and screws for the removable links. We’ve sourced a new clasp for the Kruger that will have on-the-fly micro-adjustment.

I’m thinking of also offering the Kruger on the new straps I recently had made from Volkers Workshop – a local leather crafter. These are a chocolate brown veg-tanned top grain leather. Very soft and supple out of the box.

As you may know, I am an avid fan of outdoor adventure and equipment to take into the outdoors. A while ago, I mentioned we were looking into an alternate use for the MOLLE pouch we ship our watches in. A first aid kit was the most popular idea, and makes sense as an essential piece of gear one might take when heading out into the wild.

MOLLE is a modular lightweight load-carrying equipment system currently in use by many NATO forces. It allows for the easy attachment and expansion of loads on military equipment. 

What I’ve come up with, is a rigid tin box that all the first aid items can be packed into. It’s a stock tin size that is readily available, but it is slightly thicker than I would have made it. While it is a tight squeeze to get it into the MOLLE pouch, there is more internal space to work with, and things won’t get squashed and damaged like they might if it was a fabric bag. Having a tin container could also prove useful in a survival situation.

The list of items in the kit is as follows:

• 10x band-aids
• 10x alcohol prep pads
• 10x iodine prep pads
• 2x sterile gauze sponges
• 1x triangular sling bandage
• 1x elastic bandage
• Scissors
• Steel tweezers
• 10x safety pins
• Rubber tourniquet
• Micropore tape
• Emergency blanket

The pouch and tin are still relatively compact (14.5×6.0x10.5cm or 5.5×2.2×4.2in) and lightweight (325g or 11.5oz), so you could attach this to your bag or clip it to a belt or strap.

We’ve also had some custom FIRST AID patches made to stick to the velcro on the front of the pouch. We’re going to make it optional to order the first aid kit with or without the pouch, so you can reuse the pouch that your watch came in, or order a new one.

We’ll also add the pouch for sale separately though as we have had a few requests for this.

Price-wise wise the first aid kit will cost $30 USD without the pouch and $40 with it.

We’ll be adding the Draken First Aid to the website soon, so stay tuned!

Kia kaha.

Mike

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback. There is clearly a lot of love for the Kruger.

I’ve come to a few decisions on those topics. For the dimensions, it seems like most of you love the size of the Kruger as it is. The 44mm diameter didn’t bother most of you, so we’re going to stick with that. We may be able to get the thickness under 14mm, but it will depend on the movement as we’ll discuss below. I’ve decided to not do a smaller fixed bezel version, at least not this time round. I do like that idea, but it might have to wait for a separate release.

There was a good amount of interest for DLC to make a return, so a portion of the cases will be black DLC coated.

I’m keen to do grade 2 titanium again as that was a big draw for the original version. We’ll do the 1200HV coating for added scratch resistance. At this stage we’re planning to do the bezel in titanium too, but we’ll do some extra testing to make sure the action is crisp and clear.

On that note, we are going to do a 60-click bi-directional bezel this time. I was thinking of offering a 5-55 and 1-11 marked bezel insert, but a few of you expressed interest in a countdown bezel with 55-5 markings which could be the go too.

Movement

The original Kruger used the Seiko VK mechaquartz movement. There are a couple of things I like about the VK movement, in particular, the VK63. The symmetry of the sub dials made it like a bit like a bicompax layout, but with a subtle running seconds located at 6. The mechanical chronograph module is great too, giving you an almost instant reset.

Automatic

I have an Oris Big Crown Pro Pilot Chrono with the SW500b and it is a joy to use. You get a really strong click when you start the chrono.

If you are interested in learning more about the virtues of the Valjoux 7750, check out this video.

Visually, the big difference between the mechaquartz and the auto version is:

• Day complication
• 12h counter and running seconds are swapped
• The chrono register at 12h is up to 30min, vs 60min on the mechaquartz. This makes it easier to get a precise reading from the chronograph.

Being automatic means you wont have to worry about battery changes, and with the 7750 blueprint, you can be sure you are getting an extremely robust and reliable chronograph movement.

One notable downside of however, is they tend to be quite thick. This is another reason why we’re making the dials thinner across all versions. I’m hoping to get the height under 14mm, but we may have to reduce the water resistance to achieve that (the mechaquartz version has 300m water resistance).

Automatic chronographs are not something many people own, and especially a Swiss-made automatic chronograph that has such a remarkable history. I’m hoping that for those of you who do get on board for the Kruger Automatic, it will hold a very special place in your collection, and on your wrist.

Dial

As I mentioned before, we are reducing the height of the dial to free up some space on the automatic version. The dial on the Kruger V1 was actually a sandwich dial, with the sub dials cut out. This was how we were able to create the luminous panda version, as the black paint was first printed on the lower layer, then attached to the luminous upper layer. The running seconds hand sat above these two layers. We ran into some QC issues because of this, as there wasn’t enough clearance between dial and hand. This is another reason why we’re dropping the panda version from the line up. Since we are only doing one layer, we cant seperate the full-lume paint from the sub dial paint like before. Also to note, there wont be any texture on the sub-dials of theKruger V2 full-lume versions as that detail gets lost due to the thick lume application.

On the bright side, we are introducing a full lume version of the VK67 Kruger. This will be in C3(X1) Super-LumiNova compared to the BGW9 of the Kruger original, so it will glow bright green at night!

A couple variations I’m considering:

For the auto version, we could use a mint coloured luminous paint called C5. It’s not as bright as C3 (or BGW for that matter) but it does look great.

I did also mockup a sand-coloured dial for the VK67 version like so. There isn’t a ceramic available in this colour, so the insert would have to be aluminium. Let me know in the comments if this is a colourway you’d be interested in.

That’s it for now. Keen to get your thoughts on the above. Please let me know what you think with a comment below.

I should have some more renders and a few more details for the Kruger in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

Kia kaha.

Mike

​Hi folks.

Just a quick update on the production of the Aoraki.

• Cases – in QC. We’ve picked up a few flaws in the finishing so we’ll be retouching those
• Dials – ready
• Hands – ready
• Movement – ready
• Straps – have the nylon straps. Ordering more leather straps today
• Packaging – have the MOLLE pouches. Aoraki velcro patches are in production, and we’re expecting some new boxes (see sample below) that will make for a more professional presentation while still aligning with our sustainability objectives.

• Zulu LE – 17pcs
• Vector – 10pcs
• Zulu – 11pcs
• Flieger – 2pcs
• Milspec – 3pcs

Straps

Leather – the leather strap that comes with the watch is great, but it does increase the height of the watch. Having a two-piece strap would be great if you want to wear it to a more formal event, where you might need the watch to slide under the cuff.

I also really like the feel of the ‘crazy horse’ leather on the bund strap, so keen to use it again here. The straps below are flat with a black leather lining and stitches down the sides.

These are also crazy horse leather, but are padded and side-stitched with black leather lining. I’m quite fond of the brown and coffee colours below, but they also come in green and black.

The buckle will be brushed stainless steel with an engraved DRAKEN logo. Price will be in the range of $35-45.

Let me know what you think in the comments on this post.

Kia kaha.

Mike

MATERIALS

Having an extra piece of steel however, added to the overall tolerances in the bezel, making it feel slightly loose in my opinion.

My thinking now is to do the bezel in steel and the case in titanium. If we did it in steel, we could get a much more reliable, positive click more easily. The lightness benefits of titanium case and the weight benefit of steel for a more tactile bezel action.

Another option that I recently discovered (and would need to test) is coating the bezel with DLC. This would drastically reduce friction, removing the grating sensation, and we might not need the extra steel ring on the inside. Only thing is the whole bezel would be black which might look a bit odd aesthetically. Let me know your thoughts.

Something else I have considered is doing a 60-click bidirectional bezel, incorporating a detent mechanism instead of the typical flat spring. We used this design on the Tugela GMT for a 48-click bezel. We could offer two insert options, so the bezel could be used to track a second timezone or as a 60min timer, depending on preference. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

In the next post about the Kruger, I’ll talk about the movement and dial designs. Stay tuned!

Kia kaha.

Mike

PEREGRINE V1

I still loved the idea of a ‘Flieger’ Type-A dial with the triangle dots reference, so I created another dial version inspired by the old WWII pilots watch worn by Luftwaffe airmen. I used the same font from our Kruger chronograph model from 2022, thereby creating a more coheseive collection. You can see the similarty below.