Thames trip on PS Waverley

The PS stands for paddle steamer and the Waverley is the last sea going paddle steamer left in the world! She was built in 1946 and is now in the tender care of a preservation society. Her home town is Glasgow and she was used by the ferry company Calmac until 1973 when it was decided that she was too expensive to maintain. The Waverley Steam Navigation Company now look after her and raise revenue by running trips around the country, starting in the Clyde and moving down finally to London, from where she returns to the Clyde for the winter.
Alan, who is a demi - Glaswegian, remembers childhood holidays in the frozen north where a trip on the Waverley was always the highlight. And it happened last October that the conjunction of the stars was in perfect alignment for a visit from Alan's sister from Florida and a Waverley excursion on the Thames.
It was a complete family day out with as many relatives as we could muster for the evening sail.
We set off from Tower Bridge Pier, going through the bridge, which has to lift to accommodate her. We then steamed downstream, passed the Thames barrier before turning back for the berth. We managed to fit in fish and chips in the dining room and a few pints as well.
We had parked the car on the south bank at the far side of the bridge to save Rene from using the underground and walking back over the bridge we saw the roadway lift again as the Waverley steamed back towards the estuary. We were also lucky enough to see a very small fox amongst the rubbish put out by some restaurants.
I apologise for the number of pictures here. On the technical side, they were all taken at extremely high ISO and I have used a noise reducing programme made by Imagenomic to reduce the the effect of noise on the pictures. I am extremely pleased with the results this has given.
Yes, the ship was named after the Scott novel, and if you like the smell of oil and the sound of paddles this is the thing for you.

I have placed a link to a very short youtube video that I made on the day at the end of this blog.

















Anne has just found the yellow split peas!



















https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQMD1EYVjdY






Comments

  1. Barry Badcock21 May 2016 at 06:21

    Great night shots. I think google spelling has changed NIK to Yes

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ronsword21 May 2016 at 16:02

    Very cool Sue. Quality pro photos. Even the fox managed to pose for your magical camera! How do you it? In any case, seemed like a very cozy little journey, though I'm not sure I would have tried those Yellow peas.

    ReplyDelete

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