Hello and welcome to Stories of Scotland, a podcast all about Scottish history, nature and folklore.

And in this episode, Jenny is taking us on a journey into the glands

and exploring all three of these things, our very favourite things,

because we are visiting the brand-new Dundragon rewilding centre.

Yes, this is the world's first ever rewilding centre,

and it sits in Glen Morrist, in the middle of the country, on the road from Inverness to Sky.

And it's about an hour's drive from both of these places and an hour's drive from Fort William.

Glen Morrison is a river Glen, so it's connected by the meandering and cascading rapids of the River Morrison.

The river had extensive work on it as part of a hydroelectric scheme, and it was dammed in 1957 to form the Dundragon Reservoir.

To the north, there's the spectacular Glen African

Mountains and to the west lies the five sisters of Kintail and to the east you'll find

Loch Ness where Nessie herself lives. If you find yourself exploring the area then please

do get a map and look for adorable bridges because this land is rich

in lovely stone structures. I recently journeyed along the shores of Loch Ness and into Glen

Morrison and visited the Dundragon rewilding centre. It's just off the main road and really

easy to find. It opened in 2023 and it's lovely

and bright and light and fresh feeling inside. The first thing you see when you enter is this

huge tree structure made of polished scrap metal with shining branches reaching up to the high ceiling and all sorts of critters

perched upon them, from squirrels to wildcats to little metal bees.

The signboard there tells me that the tree represents the tree of life.

Ambila, which connects the heavens and the earths. The snake coiled around the roots represents

the underworld, while the bird sitting on the highest branch helps guide spirits onto the next world.

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