A hike, a swim, then a full-on rave: is this Britain’s most remote club night?

Ullapool is a tiny Scottish fishing village in the north-west Highlands ringed by beautiful mountains. And when the tourists move out, the DJs move in. We meet the team making Baile/Baile boom boom

It’s late on a Saturday night in the tiny Scottish fishing village of Ullapool, well past 1am, and bass is pulsing out into the otherwise quiet streets from a quaking function room. This is Baile/Baile, possibly the most remote regular club night in the UK.

Located about 60 miles northwest of Inverness, and the same distance from the very top of Scotland, Ullapool has long been an important hub for the surrounding villages. Despite only having a population of around 1,500, it has plenty of art studios, cafes, galleries and a museum. Plus, it’s home to a highly regarded school for traditional arts and Gaelic language. There’s an annual book festival and, from 2005 to 2019, there was a two-day music festival called Loopallu, headlined over the years by Mumford & Sons, Franz Ferdinand and Idlewild. The village is packed over summer thanks to the North Coast 500, a 516-mile scenic driving route around the northern peripheries of Scotland.