The corner of Ann Arbor Road and Ypsilanti Road is located in the La Lucia neighborhood in Umhlanga, Durban, South Africa.

Photo courtesy of Damian Farrell

Today's morning links are all about figuring out where this sign is.

Where is this sign?

The photo above comes from local architect Damian Farrell, who was recently traveling in South Africa. 

From left, Bruce Benz, Stephanie Benz, Katherine Hilboldt Farrell, Michele Richardson, Tom Richardson.

Photo courtesy of Damian Farrell

"This is an area called La Lucia, just north of Durban where most of the Ford executives lived during the Ford heydays in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s," writes Farrell, who took this photo in early August.

According to the bio on his company's website, Farrell is a graduate of the University of Natal, Durban, in the Republic of South Africa. Farrell relocated to Ann Arbor from South Africa in 1987. He owns Damian Farrell Design Group.

What can we find out about Umhlanga or Durban?

The weblog (d)urban(a) is "an intersection of craft ecologies between durban/kzn/sa and urbana/il/usa," written in 2008 and 2009 to chronicle a three month visit to the area.

The University of KwaZulu-Natal is the major university in Durban. There were two connections that I readily identified between the University of Michigan and this institution; a study abroad program description, last taught in 2005, and a list of references for externships organized by the University of Michigan Law School. I am certain that there are more connections to be found.

Where is this place?

Durban is on the east coast of South Africa, on the Indian Ocean. It's located at 29°53′S 31°03′E, as far east as Cairo, Egypt and as far south of the equator as Cairo is north of the equator.

The corner of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti is in Umhlanga, just north of the Virginia Airport, a municipally owned general aviation field. There is discussion of closing the field, which is unprofitable but which also provides the only place for small craft to land in the area. A parachutist died in July practicing for the show, reports the Digital Journal, an online news service based in Toronto.

There is a beach, with shells on it; a beach photo from Flickr user ossewa shows the sand and sky in July 2008.

A promotional site shows some Umhlanga tourist information.

How is the weather?

Check the weather on the Weather Underground Wundermap for Durban. Looks nice right now, with a daytime high of 70 and an overnight low of 62.

What time is it there?

Durban is GMT+02; Ann Arbor is GMT-04. So we are six hours off, and when it's lunch time here, it's dinner time there.

How to get there?

There are a lot of flights that go to Durban, South Africa from Johannesburg, South Africa; a lot of flights from Johannesburg to Europe, and a lot flights from Europe to Detroit. I priced one February flight at about $1,300 round trip. You may be able to fly for less if you have flexibility on timing and routes.

Where to stay?

Travel information for small lodgings in this particular area are syndicated through a huge number of tourist and travel information sites, all of whom get a cut of the booking fees in exchange for you booking a room through them. Links to any one of them reflect ways to get details that will help you. With all small places, you might find that contacting the owner directly will save time.

I was able to locate information about Seaside Cottages on a site called Rooms for Africa. It is located at 12 Forest Crescent, La Lucia, Umhlanga, Durban, just around the block from the corner of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. A photo on Flickr from a visitor describes the place in these terms: "You are welcomed by a nice owner with family incl two cute dogs. Perfect place. We were recommended to go to Umshlanga mall for grocery shopping but the last day, we just popped in to look at the LaLucia Mall and so pity we did not use that.....it's really close and had nice shops. We did not like how the furniture were placed so we moved while we stayed."

What else to see?

A Flickr group for Durban, South Africa has a lot of photos. I always like exploring Flickr as a way to get a look at a place and to see some of the things that don't make it onto tourist brochures.

Edward Vielmetti is preparing a story pitch for the February update to this story for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.