Scottish anchorages

Abandoned and rusting machinery in Aros Park

And what a surprise! Who would have thought to find an active and successful theatre here? A miracle of artistic survival, run on a shoestring and threatened with closure on more than one occasion. The Mull Theatre was founded in 1966 by Barrie and Marianne Hesketh, a couple of actors who had settled on Mull. They bought Druimard House in Dervaig and amazingly started to produce plays in their barn, with just the two of them as the cast – and so the legendary Mull Little Theatre was born and continues to this day as the Mull Theatre in its new purpose built home near Tobermory on the Salen road, although without the Heskeths since 1985. For a while it was celebrated as the smallest professional theatre in the world. Its success is due to the dedicated people who run it, a lot of media coverage over the years, a supportive local population, subsidies, and – of course – well produced plays which not only tour to almost every theatre, city, town, village and island in Scotland but also have landed up in London. You can catch the tours in the most unlikely places such as Muck, Arisaig and Craignish village hall, but don’t blink – these are generally one night stands and the company are packed up and off in the morning for a performance that evening somewhere else. Book now!

So if there is something on, definitely go to the Mull Theatre. It is a 40 minute walk from Tobermory along the coastal path and through Aros Park, but much quicker from the Aros Bay anchorage, skirting the loch on your left and taking the path up towards the main road at Druimfin (ph 01688 302673) - definitely do not walk along the main road.

 Majoring on water lillies, the loch in Aros Park,