00:00It's a huge project. It was a huge project long before I came on the scene in terms of all the different partners to make this happen and now to look at that building behind us and where it's come is incredible.
00:13And now it's another phase where we work in the final weeks and months to get it to the stage where it is the standard of visitor experience that we want.
00:28And to me that's absolutely the most important thing is that when we open those doors it's right and that people come in and you know they're wowed by it, whether they're visitors to the Highlands or whether they live in the Highlands, you know, so that's what's important to me.
00:46We started working with communities back in 2021. We launched the Spirit of the Highlands and Islands project and that was part of the castle's content creation plan.
00:56And it's been fantastic to be part of that and see all of the submissions that have come in and then I've worked with our design partners, Mather & Co predominantly, on what we do with those stories and how we bring them to life within the castle.
01:07Yeah, we had thousands of submissions of stories so, but there was lots of really strong themes that came out of that, you know, landscape, heritage, particularly people and what that means to communities and how people really build our communities in the Highlands and the spirit that they have.
01:22If you've got a Highland connection, if you've got those roots right down in your, you know, through your heart and through your veins, I think, you know, everybody's got Highland pride that they can really feel connected to.
01:30And what we're really hoping to do in the castle across the stories and how we're portraying that is not only invite the visitors to feel that too, but really ignite those emotions within visitors that live and work here as well.
01:42Standing up at the top of that castle and looking down across the River Ness and the Great Glen, seeing as far as the Murray Firth and right out across Ebb and Wivis and Tomahura Hill.
01:54Some really classic landmarks and you really get to see, you know, the sprawling cityscape and how Inverness is growing and thriving, but with that beautiful Highland mountain landscape just on our doorstep ready to explore.
