By Parker McKenzie
A community event in The Basin will celebrate the restoration of a cairn containing a time capsule which was uncovered and its contents salvaged in February.
The event will take place at The Basin Triangle, located at 1326 Mountain Hwy, The Basin on May 1.
Organiser Lynette Hayhurst said the ceremony would have live music and a special guest in Knox Mayor Susan Laukens.
“We’ll unveil it to the community and the mayor. Would you believe she is going to be there?” she said.
“There’s been a lot of interest still in the time capsule. Its contents are still at Miller’s homestead in Boronia, which is a historic homestead that’s just been open to the public.”
The event will begin at 12pm for the unveiling of the restored cairn, where community members can enjoy the live music by bringing themselves a picnic. A gold coin donation will go towards future restoration work in The Basin.
Ms Hayhurst said the cairn has been completely restored in preparation for the event.
“The fascinating part of the story is that I got to speak to the boy who was 12 years old at the time and I spoke to him now as an adult in his 60s,” she said.
“I asked him what you put in there. He said he probably put some pages of the handbook, the letter and he put a photo but he didn’t remember what the photo was.”
The only surviving contents were eight pages of The Basin Centenary handbook of 1967, restored by an archivist after the pages were removed from the capsule in a clump.
You can read more about the discovery and opening of the time capsule at ferntreegully.mailcommunity.com.au/news/2022-03-09/history-comes-alive-the-basin-time-capsule-1967-2022/
