The pretty village, whose name means in the shade, is set on a hillside overlooking the sea. Its streets are lined with coral trees and in winter their red flowers add splashes of colour to the townscape. A golf course adjoins the main shopping street, and near the railway station there is a grove of raffia palms. The nearest known group of these plants is on the Mozambique border, 260 kilometres north. The rare palm-nut vulture is a fruit-eating raptor that may be spotted here, and the swamp forest and raffia palms can be seen from a raised boardwalk.

Mtunzini lies in a belt of unspoiled coastal forest that falls within the Umlalazi Nature Reserve. Comfortable log cabins, tucked into the forest, border a broad marsh, and along the banks of the Mlazi River there is a circular walk through a mangrove swamp that is alive with crabs and mud-skimmers.