We stayed at Vanya's place for 3 nights and had a great time. It's a 30 minute walk into downtown Auckland but there's plenty of good bars and restaurants in Ponsonby.
Vanya's cat Baz is cool af. He's got a weird gurgly meow on him and is very friendly. We hung out in the massive backyard and he was there too, just chillin'. The neighbours pretty much looked after him with the feeding and we just made sure he had dry food and water.
Vanya was very communicative and made sure we made it to the place alright (which we did) and also checked in with us via email to make sure everything was fine with our stay, which it was.
Would stay here again.