Mtunzini
Mtunzini – The name is a word in the Zulu language meaning “place in the shade”.
In 1948, 9 square kilometres of dune forests, lakes and lagoon at Mtunzini was proclaimed a nature reserve known as the Umlalazi Nature Reserve. This area falls under the protection of the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. The Umlalazi Lagoon is a popular tourist attraction for watersports enthusiasts and fishermen alike. Recreational and commercial ski-boat fishermen also launch their boats in the lagoon to head for the Indian Ocean via the mouth of the Umlalazi River.
Mtunzini is a bird watchers paradise and is renowned as one of the few places where one of South Africa’s rarest birds of prey, the palm-nut vulture, is found. These birds feed on the fruit of the rafia palm which produces its fruit once every twenty years before dying.
Visitors can enjoy a walk through the lush vegetation at the Rafia Palm Monument, which features a raised boardwalk that meanders through to the magnificent palms.
Very few people know that Mtunzini’s Umlalazi River was used as a filming location for a remake of the 1976 TV drama, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, based on the historical, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alex Haley. A part of the series was filmed along the river in September 2015 because of the river’s uncanny similarity to the Kumby Bolongo River in The Gambia and featured in Haley’s novel.