Sound reverberates eerily inside the heavy concrete walls of the old elephant house at Wellington Zoo, in the gloomy half-light, dimmed now that the biggest animals are long gone for new tenants, almost the smallest, who like the dark, the bats.
The history of the elephant house is in the tales of the kings of the land animals themselves, and their keepers.
Their huge presence can still be felt in the ugly dark green glossy paint, which bears no trace of them, but in whose imperfections one can imagine images of the beasts, like viewing torch-lighted cave paintings of their pre-historic relatives, the woolly mammoths.
The zoo has had four elephants, Nellikuthra, given by Madras in 1927, for whom the elephant house was built, Maharanee, Nirvana, and probably the best remembered of all, Kamala.
Kamala was born in 1930 in a forest in Mysore, India, and hauled logs for a living.
In 1953 the All-India Women's Conference gifted her to New Zealand in recognition of work done by Corso. For 30 years she entertained children and adults with rides and parades.
Murray Roberts was one of Kamala's last keepers and handlers.
He is the longest-serving zookeeper, starting there in 1965. He knew only two of the elephants, Nirvana and Kamala but he speaks fondly of his time with the pachyderms.
"I started looking after the elephants in 1970 and stayed with them until Kamala died. I had always wanted to work with animals, but particularly exotic animals, rather than farm ones.
There was an ad in the paper for a keeper, and there were no special requirements in those days, you just had to show some affinity for animals. "
His memories are deep about the bond between the keeper and the kept, particularly in the case of elephants. Mr Roberts says Kamala had a lovely disposition, and was very good to work with if you were the right stuff.
"You have to get the right sort of people with an elephant, even tempered and not excitable.
"If you do, they can develop a huge rapport with the animal. You can't really push an elephant around.
"She would test out new keepers by giving them a flick with her trunk. She did that with me when I started and I became very attached to her."
Kamala was big three and a half tonnes. "We brought in some Ministry of Transport Scales to weigh her.
"The elephant rides required five people the handler, which was quite often myself, and two people loading, and two ticket-sellers. We had enormous queues.
"I used to ride Kamala around the zoo.
"Her neck was like sandpaper on your bare legs, if you were wearing shorts."
Asian elephants have long hair, the remnant of those woolly mammoth genes, and often their "haircuts" sometimes with a blowtorch leave a vicious stubble.
In the old bare elephant house, the only remaining sign of its former tenants is a somewhat sad reminder: an old iron chain ring embedded in the wall, one of several.
Chaining the elephants overnight was standard practice in zoos of the time.
"The animal would have an anklet, with a chain linking the two if we wanted to restrain it, for a bath, or to sweep Kamala off before rides.
"I think we should save those. We need some elephant memorabilia."
Some people questioned the ethics of keeping elephants in confined spaces.
However, Mr Roberts thinks that even though the elephants didn't have a large, wild space to themselves, they had each other, and enough room, walking around the zoo.
"In a sense the whole zoo was their enclosure, they were always out and about.
"They had trees in certain parts they used to do their rubbing on.
"A lot of the zoo was undeveloped then.
"They had places where they could kick up clods of dirt and sod and throw the grass over their backs.
"There were banks where they could work away at the clay with their tusks, and eat it. And we used to take them out grazing, as well, plenty of grass available."
Mr Roberts is a "swing keeper" at the zoo today, a rover who works where needed.
He comes to the elephant house sometimes, and says while there probably are no elephant ghosts, he does feel their presence.
"Day by day as I'm just doing my work, I do come in here and just stop and reflect, think about the elephants. I do sometimes hear them.
"I sorely miss them. But I'm very accepting of the fact that we'll never see them here again, and very supportive of that it's just something we can't do, [because of space and their social need for at least three or four other elephants]".
Mr Roberts is a level-headed, solid man, but Kamala was obviously more to him than a charge, or a pet.
His voice quavers a bit as he stands on the spot and talks about her dying.
"One of my most poignant memories in all my years of keeping is the day Kamala died, on June 13, 1983. I was the one who found her.
"I opened up the big doors to the elephant house, and she was lying right here. I remember getting down on the floor and just talking quietly to her.
"She slowly lifted her trunk up, and she put it right to my face, like this I even get tears in my eyes now.
"They say elephants know when they're dying; I think so. But I don't think she was saying good-bye, just reaching out to a friendly voice."
Other staff came, and tried to help Kamala, whose stomach was bloated.
"We got her back up on her feet, had to use tractors and ropes.
"We got her out in the yard, but a short time later she just collapsed and died, of a ruptured spleen.
"There wasn't really much of a chance to say goodbye."
The death of the much-loved Kamala was felt throughout the region.
"People were very upset. We actually had a burial service here at the zoo." A couple of years later they dug her up and cleaned her skeleton and put it on display at the National Museum in 1991, and brought her back to the zoo's 90th anniversary in 1996.
When Kamala died, middle-aged, at 53, the zoo tried for 16 years to find a replacement, then decided not to have more elephants because of cost and need for space and companions.
Worldwide zoos are reducing elephant exhibits, partly because of animal rights campaigners' pressure, despite the need to preserve the Asian species, like Kamala, which is down to less than 35,000 in the wild, mainly because of habitat destruction.
There are only three elephants left in this country. The last remaining circus elephant in New Zealand, African elephant Jumbo is reportedly enjoying retirement at the Franklin Zoo and farm in Tuakau, Auckland, after 30 years of performing with owner-handler Tony Ratcliffe.
Auckland Zoo is keeping its lone remaining Asian elephant, Burma, after the death of Kashin, and says it is looking for more. Wellington Zoo had hoped to be a part of that worldwide network, because its focus had shifted from display to conservation of all animals.
But is the new building going to be greater commercialisation of the zoo? Zoo spokesman Matt Kennard said what used to be a place of entertainment is now a place of learning, fun and conservation.
"We need a lot of money to keep the conservation projects going, keep the animals in the best possible health and keep up their enclosures.
"We're not a for-profit agency, everything we make here goes back into the animals. This will add an extra dimension to the zoo." Mr Roberts, who stays in touch with elephant news, and laments loss of habitat and endangerment, hasn't thought about writing a memoir.
"I'm still working. I'm only 66 and I'm not looking at retiring yet. "What's happening in the zoo now is just so exciting. "In the earlier years there wasn't much to look forward to from year to year, now that new things are happening I don't want to miss out on them."
The zoo could consider other elephant memorabilia or exhibits for the new building, he says. And the zoo says it might.
