See the Southern Lights

I was in the country, south of Nelson, New Zealand, out at night with a friend and their father, who were rabbit hunting (actually, mostly hare hunting, due to calicivirus), and we saw whitish lights in the sky.
It looked like giant spotlights were coming up from behind the mountains, illuminating the sky. Beautiful, but really white (and no, there were definately no giant spotlights there) – apparently that’s more common with the southern lights. I’d like to see the brighter northern lights one day.