Six days after they arrived, the protesters outside Parliament have only settled themselves in more despite concerted efforts to remove them.
What has unfolded has been a battle of will and wits between Speaker Trevor Mallard and the police versus the protesters.
The entire protest has been livestreamed, and so armchair spectators have provided a running commentary at every step.
The police strategies have included picking off the protesters one by one, waiting it out, to hoping Cyclone Dovi will do half of the job for them. The Speaker's have involved sprinklers and speakers.
Unable to interfere in a police operation, Mallard could only rage impotently from his balcony as the attempts to shrink the protest group only succeeded in doubling it.
On Friday night, he started to deploy his own strategy. It was apparently inspired by the French soldier in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who shouts "I fart in your general direction" at his foes.
Tuesday:
The Convoy 2022 protesters arrived at Parliament on Tuesday, and it began as most protests had done.
There was a lot of shouting and waving of placards of varying degrees of comprehensibility and relevancy. The usual flimsy barriers were in place to keep the protesters off the paved forecourt and on the lawn, after the last protest saw them take over Parliament's steps.
But this time they did not go home at the end of the day.
Wednesday:
By Wednesday, tents were up. The vans and cars of the protesters were still blocking Molesworth St, out the front of Parliament.
The tents gave Mallard the reason he needed to issue a trespass order: the rules for protesting at Parliament prohibit "structures" being put up.
The more compelling reason was the visceral nature of some of the protesters' actions.
There were death threats, calls for executions and protesters haranguing members of the public – including school children - walking by.
The trespass notice was issued on Wednesday and the police called in to enforce it.
Polite requests to leave were ignored, more tents went up.
There was also some Lord of the Flies drama among the protest groups themselves, an eclectic assortment of the Counterspin conspiracy theorists, the alt-righters, the anti-vaxxers, Brian Tamaki's Freedom and Rights Coalition.
Tamaki's crew disagreed with the decision to stay put, calling for things to remain peaceful, and took off in a huff.
Police efforts to clear the land began in earnest on the Thursday.
Thursday: The pick 'em off strategy
Portaloos had now arrived after the protesters were refused entry to use Parliament's loos.
It was the most dramatic day of the protest – 122 people were arrested.
Police formed a thick line at one end, and started arresting protesters one by one, taking them around to a large police truck and hauling them off. Every arrest was livestreamed on media websites and by the protesters. It was sometimes not pretty viewing – on both sides.
It was clear the hope was that the arrests would be enough to clear the rest of the group. It wasn't - it seemed that for every protester arrested, 20 more were filing in from the road.
Efforts to move the vehicles blocking Molesworth St also proved difficult – Wellington's towies refused to start towing away the vehicles, citing the risk to safety. The police started to think about using the Army to move the vehicles instead.
Inside Parliament, MPs who had protested themselves in their younger years said it had gone too far and the protesters must leave. The protesters paid no more heed to this than to the police.
It wasn't all grim. One social media video showed a protester playing paper, scissors, rock with the police.
Every time he lost, he had to move back a step.
The paper, scissors, rock strategy was no more successful than the pick 'em off strategy.
Friday: The Soaked Earth Policy Day
The pick 'em off strategy and arrests of 122 people resulted in the protest crowd getting bigger and more tents up on lawn by Friday morning. Food carts had also moved in.
Police went for the opposite tack: they did nothing.
All day long, a relatively sparse line of police stood staring blankly at the crowd.
In the morning, some had had batons on their hips. They were quickly ordered to remove them.
They stood and waited for another weapon to arrive: bad weather.
The forecast rain arrived that afternoon, but was not as torrential as police might have hoped.
In the early afternoon, Parliamentary Service advised all staff to leave by 4pm. It seems there had been some chatter about the protesters trying to storm the barricades at 5pm.
They did not storm the barricades. But at 5pm the Speaker deployed the Soaked Earth Policy.
He turned on the sprinklers – giving protesters a quick shower before putting them onto the soak setting to flood the lawn. Pools of water quickly formed and he announced they would stay on overnight.
Alas, he had forgotten some in the crowd were Trump supporters. They simply drained the swamp.
Long trenches were dug along the lawns and bottles rigged up over sprinklers to direct the water onto nearby footpaths. Calls for a plumber went around, and someone went to Bunnings to buy piping and pipe fittings.
These were attached over the sprinklers to divert the water. They also served as handy sources to refill water bottles. It did at least keep the protesters too busy for a while to cause problems.
There was more talk about how to clear the vehicles from the road. By now, there were a lot more vehicles on the road.
Protesters 1, Trevor 0, Police 0.
Saturday: The Pray for Dovi Day
The Do Nothing and Soaked Earth strategies were so successful that by Saturday morning the crowds had doubled again and were spilling over into surrounding streets.
Saturday brought the return of Tamaki's Freedom and Rights Coalition. It was as if Camp Mother had arrived.
They ordered no alcohol be consumed on the grounds.
Then they ordered people to pick up their rubbish. God forbid the litter bylaws should be breached on top of multiple laws, Covid-19 response public orders, and Mallard's breach of Wellington Council's water restrictions.
They also had their own self-styled security unit - a thin high-vis and rain ponchos line – standing in front of their group making sure people didn't breach the barriers.
Meanwhile, the other protesters were adding to their landscaping from the night before – they planted ferns on the lawns, hay and carpet was put down to soak up the mud.
Someone was using a laser pointer, directed at journalists' faces. Someone had put decoy mallard ducks into a puddle, and was using a duck caller - either to taunt Mallard for the sprinklers or to try to entice him out.
The police were undoubtedly hitting refresh to see where Cyclone Dovi was tracking and praying Parliament was its target. Wellington's wind would usually be a reliable way to flatten tents, but it had not come to their aid.
A statement said police were still looking at how to clear the roads.
Mallard meanwhile was sitting and plotting his next move.
At 6pm last night it landed: Parliament's speakers booming out a loop of Covid-19 vaccination ads, Barry Manilow, the Macarena and a recorded message from Mallard saying they were trespassing.
The Speaker might not win. But at least he'll have fun losing.
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