So much of our lives went unrecorded before we had camera phones. I'm pretty thankful for this, because there's a lot of memories I'd rather weren't on film. However, there's some things I wished I'd captured - events and happenings that filled me full of childlike awe.

The Southern Lights, Aurora Australis, is one of them.

My uncle emailed me these photos. Sadly, he lost the original negatives, and only had the digital copies, which are pretty poor. But somehow, they say say I was there. That I witnessed this incredible, magical, spectacular lightshow. In the first photo, you can see the tip of the Bells Beach wave which some surfers on Steemit might be familiar with.

I spent my childhood within a kilometre of this coastline and remember the window always open, no matter what the weather, just so I could hear the swell crashing on the beach. Years later it's hard to imagine being so priveleged as to grow up in a place like that. I couldn't afford to buy there now, the house prices on the coast rising like they have. There's a pang of nostalgia of course - we don't realise how good we have things until they are gone. Or maybe we do. I remember being full of joy and thinking I lived in the most beautiful place on earth.

Bells Beach: Heaven for Surfers

We saw thunderous electrical storms light twenty foot swells up in purple glows, terrified as Dad insisted we drive out to watch it break open the sky over the bowl that is the Bells cove. We saw huge clean swells on Christmas Day and the hilarity of someone writing huge on the sand 'Thanks Santa!' so it was visible from the cliffs. We saw a pod of a hundred dolphins churnimg the sea and the yearly migration of whales, and surfed with dolphins too, their black eyes gazing as we stared back unable to turn on the waves green but only hoot and holler. We saw shooting stars and Haley's comet. We rode horses along the long stretch of beach from Southside to Addis (it's not permitted these days) and through the Ironbark Basin and from Jan Juc all the way to Point Impossible, crossing the Bell St bridge which is now a superhighway of cars that would kill a horse in a second. We surfed in uncrowded lineups, now a thing of the past. We truly had a blessed childhood, and so little of it captured on film.

But nothing topped the vision of the sky all quivering sheets of yellow and orange.

Aurora Australis is the northern lights cousin, but doesn't get as much attention. Maybe because we're more remote and less populated here. New Zealand and Tasmania and our state of Victoria are the best places to see them, but I've only ever seen them once and we just don't hear about them alot. That's why this 1991 occurrence is so amazing for me - in all the years I've spent on that coast, it's the only time I have seen them and in living memory, most people I know refer to this event above all others. There's a whole heap of factors that determine the chances of seeing them - the time of year, cloud cover, how far south you are (far more likely to spot them in Tassie than here in Victoria) so I really count myself lucky that this is in my memory archives, even if the photos don't do it justice.

What awe inspiring beauty do you recall seeing in your distant past? What wonders have captured you in ways that you may not have been captured since?

Despite their grainy inexpert captures, quite unlike the crystal clear photos of the auroras on the internet, I treasure these immensely. I love that my uncle had taken them, and I love that so many of us were lined up on the cliffs that day, totally in awe of nature's splendour - in much the same way the crowds gather when the giant swells come through, there was a sense of togetherness in the air, of shared wonder.

I love the white spots of stars - that was a sky captured precisely at that moment in time, and there will never ever be another sky just like it, like a fingerprint, unique. I love how in my memory it was different - more vivid, and alive, but yet the same - the blackness of the cliffs, the large sky, the colours and the universe singing at us. It must have been cold as the date says mid June and that's Winter here. I don't recall the cold. Funny how memory is a fickle thing. Maybe my heart was thrumming so with the wonder of the sky and the brilliant world that I couldn't feel a thing.

Have you seen the Southern Lights? Do you have photos to share? I'd love to hear about your experience!