I photographed an aurora in late October 1989 from the car park at Mt Banks, it was quite bright enough to drown out the Milky Way and naked eye stars at mag 5-6. I had been prepared for some astrophotography, but in the end we just sat and watched the show as the aurora came over in waves from the south about 20 minutes apart.
Probably the same night !
You can see one of the pics at
http://www.southastrodel.com/PageAurora001.htm