Beautiful blue ! “Shima lake” information of access and parking lot

四万湖

This time I try to add the English article. There may be some differences in translation.

Do you know the word of Shima blue? Shima river is located in Agatsuma city of Gunma prefecture.
The river is picturesque and illusionary blue. It is the reason why this blue is called Shima blue.

In fact, it is not seem to be natural color but artificial color.  I don’t know how the blue is made.
Simply, I recomemnd you to check the beautiful scenery out after the pandemic.

I’d like to introduce information of Shima rake’s parking lot and I will show you great pictures of this lake.

四万湖

四万湖

About Shimako

Surprisingly, there are two lake.
Firstly I would like to introduce Shimako. The other is called “Okusimako”.
Compared to two lakes, Oku Shimako’s water is more beep blue. Personally I prefer going to Shimako

Two lakes are surrounded by dam. 

Spring is the best season which we visit because snow is into water and flow into the rake. And we can enjoy marine sports such as kayak and Sup.

About the Shimako canoe tour, follow the link below
Shimako canoe tour

Accuses to Shimako

It is not hard to go to Shimako. By using the national road, we can easily go to the lake. 
I recommend traveler to visit the lake.

Name Shimako
Address Shima, Agatsuma Gun Nakanojo Machi, Gumma Ken, 377-0601, Japan
Phone number 0279-75-8814
Parking lot No fee
Price Free
Regular holiday Open year round
Caution
The map above is a parking lot of dam side. If you want to see the dam, you should park here, but if you want to look down on the river from the bridge, you should go to another parking lot (see below).

Parking lot 

In Shimako, there is a free parking lot.
But it is so small, Parking lot will be crowed on Saturday and Sunday of spring season.

There are two parking lots (dam side and bridge side)

The parking lot of dam side

If you want to see the dam, you should stop your car or automobile on this parking lot.
This parking lot is the nearest place to go to this dam.

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The parking lot of bridge side

If you want to look down on Lake Shima from the bridge, you should stop here. However, the number of cars that can be parked is small, and there are no white lines, so if visitors park their car separately, the space will be quite small.

By the way, I would like you to visit this place rather than the dam. There are few people here, so it’s very quiet and you can take pictures of the river leisurely. If you are lucky, you may be able to take picture of the moment the kayak passes under the bridge. 

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Caution
I don’t worry about passing the road that you go to the parking lot.
I could pass through the road by Hiace.

The landscape from the bridge 

As I mentioned early, you should walk around the land of bridge side. 
It is not obvious when you look the lake. You may think that It is not quite.

To avoid dissatisfied experience, you should see the river from the bridge! 

You should remember what I wrote.

If you are lucky, you can take pictures that kayak go under the bridge. The picture of only river is monotonous.
As an accent, you must take good picture of river and human.

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How much the appearance will change?

Let’s compare the Shimako color near the land and from the bridge.

The picture from the bridge

It depends on condition of the wind, but a reflection of the sunlight is not outstanding very much.
There are no overexposure spot. You look beautiful blue.

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The picture near the lake

When you see water near the lake, you sometimes see the reflection of sun. If the weather is bad, you hardly see the blue. but without wind, by using PL filter.

If the bad condition You hardly see the blue.

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Let’s bring PL filter

The picture which I posted was taken by using PL filter. PL filter is a tool to sustain reflection of water and grass.

It is impossible to delete reflection completely. So you should avoid windy day.

Summary

This river is very rare spot around japan.
Most tourist don’t go to this place and they go to city of Shima hot spring.
But this spot is very beautiful.

Short summary
  • Shimako is located in Gunma prefecture.
  • River, lake and dam are combined.
  • Its famous for beautiful blue.
  • Spring season is good you can enjoy .
  • If you take pictures, you should choose the day of sunny and no wind.
  • You should bring the PL filter.