Road trip with tokyo grapher
A trip around the Fuji Five Lakes in early spring Vol.5
After completing our 13-man road trip to the Fuji Five Lakes, the three of us from Osaka decided to run along the Shizuoka coastline and take some photos before heading home.
There are several shooting points that I have researched in advance, but the information and images found through web searches are often unreliable. Also, this day is a weekday Monday, so it may take some time to get through the city. The car I prepared for this trip, the Jeep Wrangler, is a rental car, so I have to get back to Osaka at 20:00. With the intention of flexibly arranging the schedule and route according to the situation, we departed from our hotel in Fuji City.
The first destination is Miho no Matsubara, which was registered as a World Heritage Site last year.
At the end of my trip around the Fuji Five Lakes, I wanted to take a picture of the car parked on the beach with Mt. Fuji in the background.
If you search "Miho no Matsubara" on the web, you will find many pictures of Mt. Fuji taken from the same place. With reference to them, try to get an idea of the approximate location on Google Maps. This is a common method for finding filming locations. However, when we approached the site, there was no place where the car could reach the coastline, and clouds were spreading in the direction of Mt. Fuji. I decided to move on to the next point.
On the way, I found a small marina on the Shimizu Bay side, so I took a detour.
A large flock of seagulls are looking for food on the beach. I switched gears to 4WD so as not to get stuck and entered the sandy beach.
The only way to bring them back is to feed them (laughs). I tried several times while changing the throwing position, but the seagulls here were very cautious and didn't fly very close to me.
take a picture of the wind
While researching where to stop on the route back to Osaka from the Fuji Five Lakes, I found two places along the Shizuoka coastline called sand dunes.
Hamaoka Sand Dunes and Nakatajima Sand Dunes. Moreover, there are places near the Hamaoka Sand Dunes where windmills for wind power generation are lined up.
It is said that sand dunes developed along the coastline from Omaezaki to Hamamatsu as the earth and sand carried from the upper reaches of the Tenryu River were carried by the "Deep Wind of Enshu". This area is named Nanyuan Great Sand Dunes.
First, drive a car toward the Hamaoka Sand Dunes in Omaezaki.
There was a well-maintained parking lot at the entrance of the Hamaoka Sand Dunes. While imagining the image I wanted to take, I climbed up the sandy slope leading to the dunes, and soon I could see the sea over there.
"No!... not at all!" What I want to shoot in the sand dunes is decidedly wind ripples. However, it was trampled down, and there was no shadow or shape of the ripples.
Probably, wind ripples don't appear unless the wind blows very strongly. Also, I can't seem to capture beautiful wind ripples unless it's early in the morning and before people come in. The tension of the three went down with the second whiff of the day.
Next is a windmill lined up near the dunes.
As you enter the coastal road, you can see a huge white windmill with three blades. You can see that there are quite a few lined up towards the west. I got out of the car and tried to find a shooting point, but it was too big to get an angle.
When I checked the points on Google Maps, I realized that it would be better to go around the west side, so I found a pleasant straight line composition through a rough unpaved road where 4WD seems to be effective.
3:30. It's almost time to leave for Osaka. Unfortunately, I couldn't reach the Nakatajima sand dunes after all.
As I walked towards my car, it looked like it was being chased by a cloud when it was parked on the beach. Have a friend wait and point the lens over the guardrail.
When I finished taking pictures of the scene, I suddenly looked outside the guardrail, and to my surprise, wind ripples were spreading there. A part of the sandy beach that wasn't even a sand dune, it was just as wide as a tennis court, but there were wind ripples without a single footprint. I carefully searched for shooting points and decided on this angle so as not to trample the delicious parts.
When I pointed the lens at the beautiful ridgeline and the shape of the pattern and released the shutter, I somehow felt like I was capturing the wind.
Come on, let's chase the sun and go home.
End
