A week that started with a student confidently predicting "Castle doesn't get Covid, bro" ended with fears an Omicron wave had begun ripping through North Dunedin.
On Monday afternoon, rumours were flying thick and fast that Covid-19 was in the area.
Meanwhile, students clutching beverages milled about in the sun dressed in bastardised school uniforms.
Some flats demanded to see vaccine passes.
"It’s a bit of a joke" admitted one student after she urged me to scan in.
Most students agreed these efforts were valiant, but effectiveness was likely to wane with every passing drink.
Later in the evening, one party was shut down after it was flooded by uninvited guests, but students had otherwise remained — broadly — within the rules of the pandemic.
On Wednesday night Castle St picked up the pace.
The largest party had sprung for bouncers and a two and-a-half metre high steel fence, in an effort to keep the guest list under control.
A student performed a running vault and landed in a writhing backyard crowd bathed in the glow of a purple strobe.
Another slipped through the side as Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger blared.
Five police officers in hi-vis patrolled through the rabbit warren of broken fences and smashed glass which connects the streets full of irreverently named flats.
One student bounced up and down as he mouthed off to a police officer.
His friends wrestled him away before things got too heated.
Students were frustrated traditional festivities were being curtailed by Covid-19, but most still wanted to have a good time, meet new friends and drink.
The lack of big parties meant many felt they were having a diet version of Flo-week: with a number of smaller house parties instead.
Twelve hours later, students received the news that the whole of Castle St on Saturday and Monday nights had been labelled as locations of interest.
Some students were optimistic, but most were sceptical that all close contacts would isolate properly or obey rules, given the pull of partying.
But on Thursday night, the street was a comparative ghost town devoid of roving groups of friends drifting from party to party.
A handful of stalwart lads vainly tried to keep the party spirit alive with a plug-in discoball, dancing anaemically to bad drum n’ bass on their Leith St porch.
In the wider North Dunedin area, a breatha stumbled out of a liquor store, straining under the weight of three boxes of RTDs.
Sporadic groups trickled to pre-drinks clutching cheap bottles of wine.
Two and-a-half hours later, 300 students crammed into a London St address and the police showed up.
But Castle St was dead and Covid-19 killed it.
