Who we are
Built by people
who actually go.
Walt Gear started with a backpack, a frustration, and two cousins who decided the world deserved better outdoor gear. It's still exactly that simple.
The origin
We tried to buy
the best.
It didn't exist.
Roelof van der Walt and Vaughn Sander are cousins who've spent their lives outdoors: fly fishing, hunting, freediving, scuba, hiking, white water rafting, travelling into places that test both man and gear. They knew exactly what they needed. They couldn't find it anywhere.
Every waterproof backpack on the market was either overpriced and under-engineered, or cheap and disappointing in the field. Seams that leaked. Zips that corroded. Straps that gave up.
So they built what they couldn't buy. The Otter 30, designed from real field experience, not a boardroom brief. Outdoor clothing followed. A brand was born.
Walt Gear is named for the family that started it, and everything we build carries that weight.
The people behind it
Two cousins.
One obsession.
Roelof van der Walt
Co-founder
Roelof runs product, design and marketing from South Africa. He's the one who dreams up the idea, tests it properly, then hands it to Vaughn with a list of everything that needs to be better. Most days you'll find him on a river somewhere with a fly rod, which conveniently is also where most of the testing happens.
Vaughn Sander
Co-founder
Vaughn handles engineering and product development from the Netherlands. He's the one who takes the finished thing apart to find out exactly how it fails, then rebuilds it until it doesn't. He's not a fisherman. His own time outdoors goes into scuba, freediving and hiking, but everything he builds is for people who spend theirs on the water or in the bush.
What drives us
We take our gear seriously.
Not ourselves.
01
Gear should earn your trust, not ask for it.
We don't believe in specs that don't translate to the field. Every claim we make, waterproof, UPF50+, field-tested, has been earned in real conditions. If it fails testing, it doesn't ship.
02
The outdoors doesn't care about your excuses.
We build for people who take difficult things seriously. Not performance athletes performing for cameras. People who go out in bad weather because the fish are running, and stay out after dark because the hunt isn't done.
03
Enjoying nature means earning the right to protect it!
We're conservationists by necessity, not by label. The places we fish, hunt and explore are under pressure. Walt Gear exists to help protect them, through the Guardian initiatives and through how we build our products.
04
South Africa makes world-class everything.
Rugby World Cups. Shearing championships. Wine, athletes, engineers, designers. There's no reason we can't build the world's best outdoor gear too, and we intend to prove it.
05
Built to last, not to sell again next season.
Disposable gear is an insult to the outdoors. Every Walt product is designed to outlast trends and outlast you complaining about it. Buy once. Buy right. Look after it.
06
Details win in the field.
A zip that corrodes. A seam that opens. A hood that slips. These aren't small problems, they ruin days. We obsess over details because the field doesn't forgive shortcuts.
What we make
Started with a backpack.
Built for everything after.
The Otter 30 was the first thing we ever made. It's still our benchmark. Everything since: sun shirts, hoods, shorts, caps, has to meet the same standard. Field-tested, properly made, worth every rand.
100%
Made in South Africa
UPF 50+
Sun protection on every shirt
IPX8
Waterproof rating, Otter 30
Zero
Compromises on materials
Where it's made
Proudly South African.
No asterisk.
Walt Gear is designed, tested and manufactured in South Africa. Not a selling point bolted on, the whole point. We want to know exactly what goes into our gear and exactly who makes it.
We work with South African fabric mills, source locally wherever we can, and back the skills and workshops that make proper manufacturing possible here. Buy Walt, and you're backing a South African supply chain, not just a South African label.
