This short walk, on a good day, offers a nice panorama over Loch Lomond and surroundings and is justly popular with walkers. It’s amazing how many Glaswegians, even those who walk, have never done it!
Park at the Queen’s View car-park alongside the A809.
Most people will take the A809 to Drymen via Anniesland and the Switchback to Canniesburn, then up to Bearsden Cross (A809). Continue through Bearsden, swinging (carefully) right, at what was St Andrews College, into Stockiemuir Road. Continue straight on over two roundabouts including the old one with a service station on the left and after a several miles you will reach the Queen’s View car-park, situated at your left-hand side,
Glasgow, Stirling G63, UK
The walk
The walk up to the Whangie begins from the Queen’s View car-park and is clearly sign-posted with a step over a wall and boards across what used to be a very boggy patch. The path is very clear until you are two-thirds up to where the path divides. If you take the lower path (more accurately straight on) you come to the right-hand side of ‘The Whangie’ – the rock cleft. This is less demanding, especially if you come back the same way.
However, it’s almost as easy to go left at the fork and climb up on to Aucheneden Hill to the trig point. Here the 360° views are spectacular on a good day. The top of Aucheneden Hill is rounded and you can come off, more-or-less in all directions. However, if you want the Whangie, follow your nose about north west (or if facing the trig point at about 2 o’clock off to the right) and look for an easy way off the hill and on to a clear path below. Turn right and it will bring you to the left-hand side of The Whangie. It’s more difficult to enter the cleft from this direction so you might want to continue on the path below and then enter from the right-hand side.
Either way it makes a nice ‘lollipop walk’ to take the left-hand path at the fork, go on to Auchineden Hill, then down to The Whangie. Then take the lower path back to the fork (where you went off left on the way up) and then back down to the car park.