Food and drink
Vegetarians please skip this paragraph. Mountain lamb is all around and Welsh Black beef – so tasty, maturing slowly at nature’s pace. Salt marsh lamb is a regional speciality grazing on ‘salt meadows’ alongside the estuary, a rich diet of sea lavender, samphire and thrift. If ‘sheep is what sheep eats’ it’s no wonder it tastes so good. Not just free-range but free-range beside the sea - bracing air and exercise each time the tide turns.
The coaching inns of Maentwrog - so easy to imagine the horses being reined in or walked to the stables. The pub in Llan Ffestiniog, bought by a community co-operative led by Mel Goch: ‘there’s been a pub here since 1726, a vital watering hole for the cattle drovers before crossing the moors.’ It was also where the crew filming Roman Polanksi’s Macbeth enjoyed a pint or two. Dark Side of the Moose and the autumn special, Bog Myrtle Stout, are two of the popular brews from the Purple Moose brewery in Porthmadog.
Street cafés in Blaenau and Porthmadog are great for people-watching. Cafés at Tanygrisiau and Tan y Bwlch make ideal breaks for walkers on the move. A Cadwalladers ice cream or fish and chips on a bench beside the harbour. Fresh mackerel caught and grilled on the beach.
Smoke box chicken is a railway speciality – triple wrapped in foil the chicken and jacket potatoes are cooked in the smoke box at the front of the engine. A bit of shunting and 13 miles later, served with a billy can of gravy, it’s a treat for the drivers. That’s not on the menu but a fireman’s ‘breakfast on a shovel’ is served at the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway.
All tastes are catered for and if you’re making a packed lunch in Blaenau the bakery does a fine ‘Kurdish pastie’.