Our house was a stone’s throw from the Yarrawonga Zoo. Calling it a zoo might have been a stretch, but for an eight-year-old, it was pretty cool. I spent each day after school feeding the animals.

We lived in a modest three-bedroom block home and had a horse. I attended Berrimah Primary School. Back then, Yarrawonga was considered “down The Track.”

On Christmas Eve 1973, Mum and Dad had a few friends over. We knew about the impending cyclone but took it very lightly – almost as if it couldn’t happen at Christmas.

This gave us a false sense of security. As the evening progressed and the wind intensified, we heard knocking on our door. We lived up the road from a caravan park, and several residents, concerned about weathering the cyclone in their caravans, asked if they could stay with us. Mum and Dad let anyone in, happy to oblige. To be honest, I think they welcomed the company.

It was very late, and the wind gusts increased. Our house started to shake, with the windows flexing and a horrible screeching sound. I was rather excited by the whole event, not truly understanding its gravity. I kept pestering Mum to go outside. To me, it was very exciting and seeing the adults panicking made it even more thrilling. Now, with children of my own, I understand the stress my parents must have felt and my desperate attempt to sneak outside only added to their stress.

I will always remember the sound of the cyclone. The NT Museum’s cyclone room captures that well, though I’m never too keen to take visiting relatives through the exhibit.

I’ll never forget the eerie silence when the eye of the storm passed over. One of the adults wanted to go out, and I was eager to join him. I remember an older man who had taken refuge with us shouting: “It’s the eye! It’s the eye!” We didn’t go out.

When the eye passed and the storm intensified again, everyone became very worried. The wind had pushed our small caravan against the house, scraping against the walls. Mum put a large mattress on me and my brother as we lay in bed, convinced the walls were going to come down. Under the mattress, and with my eight-year-old adrenaline exhausted, I fell asleep.

The next day, I woke to what seemed like an apocalyptic scene. Adults were rushing around, and people were crying. Our house had endured the cyclone with only minor damage and a severely damaged caravan. We were lucky and relatively unscathed. I will always remember the flattened trees and debris, much of it from other properties.

Christmas Day was a blur. Mum and Dad were dazed but grateful we had survived. Down the road, several caravan residents were not so fortunate. Mum and Dad felt proud of having opened our house to others.

With no power and everything in disarray, Dad’s brickworks had been destroyed. My brother Ashley was only two, and Mum and Dad decided we needed to evacuate to visit grandparents in Brisbane whom I had never met. They chose to stay in Darwin to help with reconstruction, as there was certainly no shortage of work.

I still remember holding onto my brother’s hand on the tarmac at the old Darwin terminal, waiting to be evacuated. It was another adventure. I recall being given name tags and ice cream.

We arrived in Brisbane, greeted by many people, which was overwhelming. I remember a large man asking where I lived. Nervous, I said “Walby Hops Road,” instead of Wallaby Holtz Road, which made him laugh.

My brother and I stayed in Brisbane for some time. On our return, we joined Mum and Dad, who had been living on the Patris, a Greek cruise ship moored at Stokes Hill Wharf as emergency accommodation. While it wasn’t exactly the love boat, I recall it as the best time of my life.

The ship was an exciting place to stay, with lots of parties. I remember running around the deck with friends and diving into the water to retrieve table tennis balls that had fallen overboard. I also remember swimming under the pylons at Stokes Wharf. Crocodile culling had only stopped in the early 1970s, so it was still relatively safe to swim in the harbour. Ironically, many years later, I would help design the future of the wharf as one of Darwin’s leading building designers.

The period after Cyclone Tracy is etched in my memory. After the Patris sailed away, we moved to a small house in Larrakeyah, and St Mary’s became my new school.

I have fond memories of spending weekends scouring the Darwin foreshore for flotsam and jetsam and regularly visiting the wreck of the navy patrol boat Arrow. My family stayed in Darwin, where I met my wife Sandra and started a family of three children.

Ironically, many years later I became a building designer and designed many of Darwin’s iconic spaces.