GPHG, Bushfires And Pokémon Cards

Plus a look at the brand new Ocean To Orbit Himalayan Project

Author

Mitchell Barber
November 14, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

🌟 Editor's Note

The 2025 GPHG has come and gone, and this year’s winners are an interesting bunch. My beloved Chopard Alpine Eagle won the sports watch prize with the Cadence 8HF, Greubel Forsey took home the mechanical exception prize with their Nano Foudroyante, and the watch that won the "Aiguille d'Or" only had one hand. What is the world coming to? I’m not going to write a full article on the winners like I did in 2023 because, well, it’s a bit boring. So if you would like to see the full list, head to the GPHG website.

I also want to say up front that I’m well aware that these newsletters haven’t been consistent. This is likely because of an innate personality flaw, but also the fact that most of the time, I don’t have anything interesting to say. About watches or otherwise. Inspiration strikes when it strikes, and if that’s every two months, two days, or two years, then so be it! It’s good to keep the readers on their toes anyway.

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter :)
Mitch x

I’ve been busy buying Pokémon cards from a vending machine. No time for the newsletter, sorry.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Theodore Roosevelt

🤔 What I’ve been thinking about…

It’s a long hike to the creativity cliff.

Writing is like a combat sport. It’s only after you throw a few punches that you are calibrated enough to make one land. Once you’ve judged your distance, speed and timing, you might get lucky and that blank page you’re fighting against will let you make contact.

When writing, you have to put in the work before anything good flows out. You have to keep showing up, deleting and starting again before the words start to stick to the page. It’s like going for a hike. First, you have to put your shoes on (open the laptop), then you get in the car (open your writing program), then you start walking. Unfortunately, the ‘walking’ in this analogy involves staring at the screen, getting up for a snack and scrolling on TikTok. You walk and you walk and only when you’re about to give up does the incredible creativity cliff appear ahead.

After five deleted sentences and a little too much chocolate, you are granted the view you needed to write something good. Then you jump off, only to realise that you’ve landed back where you started, in the car park. Fuck, delete, delete, delete.

Retailer display standards are wild out here!

I was walking down the street the other day, window shopping as you do, and I came across some beautiful Speake Marin watches on display. I stopped to have a look, and was disappointed with what I saw. I love this brand, and the way they are represented at this retailer is diabolical. How can you expect potential collectors to respect a watch that’s displayed like this? Loose plastic covering still on, strap screws loose and watches off kilter like a dilapidated merry-go-round. These watches deserve so much better!

Maybe it’s time to open my own boutique. Who’s in?

Introducing The Ocean To Orbit Himalayan Project

I was once told that my second child would be easier than my first.
The justification for this flawed observation was that my firstborn is some kind of Frankenstein experiment that I use to iron out all of my parenting deficiencies. What a crazy take. The truth is that no two kids are the same, and any learning you go through as a parent is immediately thrown out the window when you bring your second bundle of joy into the world. I’m sorry to say that it gets no easier with experience; the challenges continually evolve.

Where this theory does hold up, however, is in the watch industry. A brand's first watch is often plagued with financial constraints, product-market fit and manufacturing issues that need to be worked through. Much like having kids, you have to make it up as you go along and put out the fires after they start. The second watch does benefit from the stumbles of the first, it benefits from time in the trenches and, most importantly, it benefits from a vision that has been distilled with time and effort.

This is where we find Melbourne-based Ocean to Orbit. Releasing their second watch, The Himalayan Project, David and Sid (the owners) have distilled their ideas and created a watch with all the DNA of their first, while creating something new. It’s a sign of good things to come from a brand that has been built from the ground up with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

Ocean to Orbit has well and truly left base camp.

The Vero Watch Company Smokey Bear 80th Edition - Only You

I woke up early on the 12th of December in 2019. Something didn’t feel right. ‍
For the past month, my wife, baby son and I had been glued to the local weather channel, eagerly waiting for rain to come. It felt like it never would. That summer in eastern Australia, we had one of the worst bushfire seasons on record. We lived right in the middle of it. For weeks, I could barely see the end of the driveway. Thick smoke from burning eucalypt trees sat in the air like a weighted blanket and stung my throat as I breathed it in. Eventually, after a couple of weeks of no rain, we made the decision to evacuate and head to the coast. It was a scary time, and one I’m glad is behind me.

Bush fires are a big part of life in Australia. Our summers are hot and dry and our landscape is covered in flammable eucalypt. Although carefully controlled cultural burning can help manage the severity of the bushfire season, it’s still a scary place to be on a particularly dry and hot summer. Like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have done for centuries, all Australians have learnt to live alongside this great force of nature. It’s a part of us.

With bush fire prevention so close to my heart, I did a double-take when I first saw the Smokey Bear 80th edition field watch from the Portland-based Vero Watch Company. Bronze case, green dial, wildfire awareness cartoon bear, what’s not to like?

Did You Know? 🐱 The world’s oldest cat lived to 38 years and three days. That’s 152 in human years. I hope I don’t live that long!

Cya in the next one,

Mitch x