The second spot we want to visit today is Polihale State Park at the end of the road towards the west in Kauai. it is one of the more remote state parks at the end of a dirt road which can be rough especially during rains. Today it is not raining and soon we are at the entrance where we have to decide where to go.
We decide to first visit Queens Pond as the road looks better initially. But we somehow soon deviate on a side branch and while we see the better road just a few feet away our road is more 4WD looking with lots of huge “potholes”. Therefore as soon as we arrive close to the beach we decide to park and walk. This is good as even though the road looks better there is limited parking at the top where suddenly you enter the dunes. There are quite a few cars on the beach but we decide not to push our luck and return to the car and start in the opposite direction.
As we get to the close of the road we decide to park and walk the remaining way to explore for wildlife. We find immediately Common Mynas which is a bit unexpected near the beach as well as Warbling White-Eyes. The views are also quite nice but it is quite hot outside and our stomachs are rumbling, we are far beyond the time we expected to return.
Still we proceed and find our first and only wild goats for the trip. They are a blur, seen for a few seconds before disappering in the brush. There are also ruins here, likely by the Native Hawaiians, probably a temple or something similar.
As the road ends we continue along the beach which is more isolated here, with almost no one else around. Most campers/picknickers stopped previously and few are making the walk to this area.
We continue along the beach until we reach its end. It is a scenic view and we understand immediately why the road ends at this point, there really isn’t a way to continue it without a very long tunnel.
From here it is time to return to the resort to finally eat something. Also cold drinks certainly don’t hurt after the hot day with limited water. The restaurant inside the resort is Chicken In a Barrel BBQ which has a good mix of food with a focus on BBQ (not that at this point it would have mattered to us). We eat outside on the patio with some nice views of the green and our cabin. Afterwards it is time to buy some provisions, we find an open supermarket and buy as much as we can with water and breakfast ingredients being top of our mind.
After unpacking we take another walk along the resort’s beach, it is a great place to see the sunset and enjoy the last rays of the sun. Afterwards it is time to go back to our room and relax for the evening as well as plan our next days depending on the weather.
