Aloha again! The plan for today was to do a little more exploring on the south side of Kauai. After getting a little extra sleep this morning, we set out to hike the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail in Poi’pu. This four-mile roundtrip hike from the Grand Hyatt Resort to Maha’ulepu Beach is billed as “easy” according to the reviewers on TripAdvisor.com, so we had high hopes of completing it quickly and enjoying some beach time. It turns out that “easy” is in the eye of the beholder. While the trail itself was certainly less vertical than our hike along the Na Pali coast earlier this week, it was very rocky and poorly marked. We had to do a lot of doubling back, and probably turned our four mile hike into about five miles or so. The views we got were stunning, though. The south side of Kauai is very different from the north side (at least in the spot where we were), and we saw lots of low cliffs and rocky outcroppings that afforded beautiful views of the Pacific. The water was so blue and the waves so mesmerizing that I tripped over rocks and tree roots several times when I looked at the views more often than where I was going. Oops. We had a written trail guide that highlighted certain spots along the way as sacred grounds or excellent examples of limestone erosion, but honestly we mostly just enjoyed the views and tried to stay on the trail. At the end, Maha’ulepu Beach was nearly deserted and so peaceful. We took it all in for a bit and then retraced our steps, eager for some lunch.
Lunch in Poi’pu consisted of puka dogs, Hawaiian hot dogs. According to a friend’s recommendation, the best place to go was a little place called Puka Dog, which has been featured on the Travel Channel. They have a short menu of puka dog options and toppings, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. As in, you watch them squeeze your lemon right then and there when you order it. That’s about as fresh as it gets. I love a good hot dog, but I wasn’t sure what to expect with this fancy puka dog nonsense. Mango relish? Lemon garlic sauce? Whatever happened to just good old-fashioned ketchup? The lemon garlic sauce is a must-have, apparently, so I got that with ketchup, and Dan got the spice lemon garlic sauce with pineapple relish and some kind of Hawaiian mustard. Based on the crickets you could hear chirping while we wolfed down our orders, I’d say we were both pretty happy.
Part of what makes a good hot dog great is the bun, and the bread used by Puka Dog was delicious. The lemonade was also a nice touch after our hike. It’s also a good thing this place was so casual and we could eat at a picnic table outside, because we were filthy with red Hawaiian dirt and sand after this particular hike. The trail was very dusty.
Since we got a late start to the day and since Poi’pu is about an hour and fifteen minutes from our hotel, after lunch we went straight back to the St. Regis to get cleaned up for dinner. It’s become a tradition to have a dressier “date night” dinner on each of our vacations, so this time around we had made a reservation at the Kauai Grill, a member of the Jean-Georges family of restaurants that was conveniently located right in our hotel. We had a delicious five-course tasting menu with a wine pairing and thoroughly enjoyed every bite. We also got to witness a beautiful sunset, since the restaurant has a huge wall of windows that overlooks Hanalei Bay and the Pacific.
All in all, it was a really nice way to start to wrap up our trip. We still have a full day tomorrow before we fly back to NYC on Saturday, but it’s crazy to think that the trip is slowly coming to a close. You can’t drive two minutes here without coming across a realty company, and I completely understand why. It’s probably a good thing we’re leaving soon, or else I’d end up being the proud owner of some little beach house or condo here before too long. 🙂
