Cadel Evans was born on 14 February 1977 at the Katherine Hospital, Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia, to Helen (née Cocks), a bank manager, and Paul Evans, a council foreman. He spent his early childhood in the small Aboriginal community of Barunga, 80 km east of Katherine. At the age of seven, he was hit in the head by a horse, and spent seven days in an induced coma. In 1986, his parents separated and he first moved with his mother to Armidale, New South Wales, and then to the Melbourne suburb of Eltham, Victoria, where his mother still lives. Evans attended Newling Public School in Armidale, and Eltham High School in Melbourne. Skateboarding was one of his teenage interests. His father describes him as a good student, but otherwise just an ordinary kid who would leave his toys around; "Not in [my] wildest dreams" would he imagine that his son would become a top world athlete.