Despite the contentious subject matter of te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, arguably less agreement has been reached about another factor from today’s Parliament protest: How big was the crowd?

Below, we’ve tried to put together a timeline of estimates and how the crowd size was reported through the day.

5:12am: Hundreds

In the wee hours of the morning, RNZ reports “hundreds” have gathered in Pito One’s McEwan Park to march south toward Pōneke / Wellington.

It had set off about an hour earlier, and within minutes, will be first example of why counting the number of hīkoi participants is so tricky.

5:17am A thousand people

It’s only been five minutes since the poor soul on the early shift at RNZ has started the day’s live blog and already the reporters on the ground are feeding back that the number is actually a thousand - so, RNZ reports 1,000 people are marching toward Pōneke.

7:31am 2000 people

Police, who are a frequently relied-upon authority for counting crowd sizes (given how often they find themselves monitoring them), say the crowd that left McEwan Park was actually 2000-strong.

7:41am 5000 people

RNZ is now reporting 5000 people are at Waitangi Park. Fair enough - the hīkoi from McEwan Park was not the only source of people for the day’s turnout. It’s important to point out at this stage that police were expecting more than 30,000 to hīkoi to Parliament while Eru Kapa-Kingi had said he expected 50,000.

Weirdly, at 8:18am, RNZ asks reporter Pokere Paiwai to guess the size of the crowd. He guesses 5000, the number they’d reported some half an hour earlier.

10:14am 15,000 + 2000 = 17,000

Crowd-counting experts Ngā Pirihimana o Aotearoa (NZ Police) are back with a radically higher estimate of 15,000 people at Waitangi Park, along with 2000 already assembled on Parliament grounds.

10:41am 50,000?

Waatea News storms out the gate with its first major estimate, saying more than 50,000 people are in the hīkoi.

11:38am An extra 2000 people

Police are now saying 4000 people are on parliament grounds, on top of the 15,000 on their way from Waitangi Park.

Within minutes, we posted this reel which included an approximate crowd size of 20,000 (15,000 + 4000 with a 5 percent margin of error).

We are flamed in the comments for this estimate.

11:47am 25,000 people?

Labour MP Willie Jackson says 25,000 people are there, according to the New Zealand Herald.

1:10pm The notorious 35,000 figure emerges

Much fretting is going on in newsrooms across Aotearoa at this point (we presume), trying to figure out the crowd size.

Police issue their verdict: at least 35,000.

We would later post that figure, and once again the comment section was unhappy with us.

1:53pm 50,000 - 80,000

Waatea News is now reporting a source with a strong background in statistical data is saying the crowd is anywhere between 50,000 and 80,000 strong.

2:30pm Winston Peters weighs in

NZ First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is speaking to media and says he’s seen far bigger protests.

He’s not sure police nailed it with 35,000 - and reckons closer to 22,000 people are outside.

“Go and have a good hard look,” Peters said, though it’s unclear how hard he looked.

2:44pm NZ First divided

Mere minutes later, Shane Jones tells RNZ the crowd size is “a hell of a lot more than 35,000 if you want my honest views”.

At this point, crowds are beginning to move away from Parliament.

3:37pm 55,000 says PSA

4:02pm 50,000, says Willie Jackson

Around 5pm: 100,000 says Waititi

Around 5pm (frustratingly, Instagram won’t show me the exact time he posted this), Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi puts the number at 100,000 people.

5:33pm 42,000 people

Wellington District Commander Superintendent Corrie Parnell says 42,000.

A lot of people still aren’t convinced, given much higher figures are floating around on the internet.

6:30pm Te Ao Māori News posts this article

So, ultimately, we’re not sure how many people showed up. The crowd was huge, don’t get us wrong - but at the end of the day, we’re not crowd-counting experts.

As journalists, we have to take the publicly reported numbers, and generally, the best authority on crowd sizes is the police.

But whatever the crowd size - 22,000 according to Winston Peters, 42,000 according to the Police, 50,000 according to Willie Jackson or 100,000 according to Rawiri Waititi, Te Rawhitiroa Bosch, or most people in our comment sections - the most important thing is that people peacefully enjoyed their right to protest and express their view.

Whatever the size of the crowd, one thing is certain: it was exceedingly hard to miss.