Its lava flows and rich friable soils were gardened for kumura and other cultivates, similar to the Otuataua Stonefields at Te Ihu a Maataoho (Ihumātao).

[4] Waiohua related Tāmaki Māori who lived on the mainland near Ihumātao helped Weekes to settle on the island; building him a whare and later a European-style house, fences, and teaching him how to fish for the flounder of the Manukau Harbour.

[4] The cows he brought to the island would habitually drown in the Manukau Harbour after becoming stuck in the low tide mud, and his horse once ate his entire vegetable crop after breaking a fence.

[4] For a period, Weekes managed the farm from afar, however decided to sell the island after fire lit to control bracken fern spread to the farmhouse.

[4] In the 1950s, several of its scoria cones were heavily quarried for fill to extend Auckland Airport nearby, along with the construction of the Mangere wastewater oxidation ponds which bordered the island.

The Kelliher charitable trust proposed a scheme whereby biosolids from the nearby Māngere wastewater treatment plant (covering 600ha on the landward sides, and served around 600,000 people in the 1990s)[5] could be used to reshape the older form of the island.