The third largest national park in South Africa. 72 km North of Port Elizabeth.
Addo Elephant National Park conserves a wide diversity of landscapes, fauna and flora.
It stretches from semi-arid Karoo area in the north (Darlington Dam), over the Zuurberg Mountains, through the Sundays River valley and south to the coast between Sundays River mouth and Bushman’s river mouth.
Addo covers about 180 000 hectares.
It also includes the Bird and St Croix Island groups.
The original elephant section of the park was proclaimed in 1931, with only eleven elephants on Jack and Natt Harvey's farm where they allowed elephants protection against a Major Pretorius whao was comissioned to deal with the "elephant menace" that were destroying farmer's crops in the area.
Today it is home to over 550 elephants, lions, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, a variety of antelope and zebra species.
It also is home to the unique Addo flightless dung beetle.
Addo has plans to expand the Park into a 264 000 hectare (652 300 acre) mega-park. In addition, plans include the proposed proclamation of a 120 000 hectare (296 500 acre) marine protected area that includes islands that are home to the world's largest breeding populations of Cape gannets and largest breeding population of African penguins.
OTHER INFORMATION:
The closing date for the annual 50k trail run is 1 February, the organisers, Extreme Marathons, have indicated they will allow for a few days of late registration until Friday 3 February.
http://www.extrememarathons.com/addo/
