a passage in 1906, their wagon was the first to reach the upper valley. At this time, James Punch settled locally.

Jack Ronayne also kept weather records for the government and was first to realize that the high livestock losses in the valley were due to goitre, which was treatable by administering iodine doses. Crops such as hay and potatoes, which had been grown mainly for local use, found new customers with the arrival of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway