Doon The Watter

We'd waited a while on this one - our much-anticipated trip "doon the watter" on the Paddle Steamer Waverley to Rothesay and we were all really looking forward to it.

PS Waverley is the last seagoing, passenger-carrying paddle steamer in the world. It was built in 1946 where the Riverside Museum is now, by the A & J Inglis Ltd. Pointhouse shipyard, at the confluence of the Rivers Clyde and Kelvin.

So, an early start saw us board the train for Glasgow, then another train for Exhibition Centre, then Shank's Pony took us over the Millennium Bridge to Plantation Quay by the Glasgow Science Centre where we joined the fairly big queue to get on board.

Once aboard, we all had a traditional roll and sausage and then, since there was an observation deck, a few bars, a dining room and a tea room, the group quickly dispersed like smoke up a chimney and we set off.

A group of men standing on a quayside in front of a paddle steamer.

The after-trip group shot (some ran away and one is hiding at the back)

After getting a hand turning round by a wee boat called Push Owl, we headed downriver past the Riverside Museum, which is where the Waverley was built, towards our first stop at Dunoon. It was quite interesting seeing a different view of places more easily recognized from the road or train as we sailed downstream and there was quite a bit of bird life like herons, swans and ducks along the banks. Added to that we got a running commentary on any interesting landmarks from one of the crew, acting as a tour guide.

A river scene with a modern museum building and a three-masted sailing ship.

Glasgow's Riverside Museum and the Tall Ship Glenlee

On the way to Dunoon, we also passed by Govan Old Parish Church, Braehead Shopping Centre, the construction site of the new Renfrew Bridge, the Barclay Curle Crane, the Golden Jubilee Hospital, the Clydebank Titan Crane, the entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Bowling, the Henry Bell Monument at Dunglass, Dumbarton Rock. and the Cloch Lighthouse at the tail of the bank. Here's a few photos of some of those - more to follow later as we did have to come back the same way:

A large, yellow cantilever crane beside a yellow building on the edge of a river.

Barclay Curle Crane

A view from a river boat to a bridge construction site.

Renfrew Bridge

An old ruined castle and stone obelisk on the banks of a river.

Henry Bell Monument

Bell's Monument is an obelisk erected in 1838 as a memorial to engineer Henry Bell who designed the paddle-steamer Comet, which ran on the first commercially-successful steamboat service in Europe.

With the weather not being great and the surrounding hills pretty much obscured by clouds for most of the day, the views were a bit hazy. Still, we got some photos all the same:

A white lighthouse on a rocky promontory by the sea shore.

The Cloch Lighthouse

A large, blue cantilever crane on the edge of a river.

Clydebank Titan Crane

A volcanic plug, on the edge of a sea shore, with a ruined castle on it.

Dumbarton Rock

Once we got to Dunoon, some folk got off or on and we also picked up the Dunoon Grammar School Pipe Band, who are trying to raise funds to get them to New York in 2026. They set up between the big red funnels and played some excellent music pretty much all the way down to Rothesay and back to Dunoon so we hope they collected a goodly amount of donations towards their trip.

Once on the way to the Isle of Bute and Rothesay, there wasn't a lot to see and the weather meant the views were limited so we got to explore the boat a bit more and listen to the band.

The engine room is fully open to view so you can see the large triple expansion steam engine in full motion. It's very similar to the one we saw recently at the Irvine Maritime Museum although it is diagonally-mounted...and bigger.

A steam boat engine engine room with two men looking at the gauges.

The Engine Room

A small pipe band playing on the deck of a paddle steamer.

Dunoon Grammar School Pipe Band

A group of people on the deck of a boat, looking into the centre of it.

Pipe Band Groupies

Once we got to Rothesay, we headed out for some food and ended up in a wee bar for an hour but time was tight given the small amount of shore time and a few of us almost didn't make it back to the boat in time. It was very close 😧

We saw it on the way into Rothesay but on leaving and on our way back up to Dunoon, we got a better view of the Toward Point Lighthouse, completed in 1812 by Robert Stevenson. Toward Point marks the extreme south-westerly point of the Highland Boundary Fault as it crosses the Scottish mainland.

A white lighthouse on the sea shore with a small yacht passing by on a choppy sea.

The Toward Point Lighthouse

Once in Dunoon we dropped off the pipe band and headed back to Glasgow.

I think we all had a great day out, very wearying but still worth doing. The only disappointments were the rolls on sausage, which were very dry and with poor quality sausage, and the short amount of time ashore. Still, I'm sure we'd all happily do it again.

Here are a few more photos taken on the way back upriver: