We really enjoyed our stay. Cici and Chen are super nice and welcoming. The house is very comfortable and clean. They also have two cute and friendly dogs:) we totally recommend it!
The location was perfect, too. Quiet area but not too far away from CBD.
By car it's only a 20min drive to the center (of course longer during rush hour). The bus station is a 5-10 min walk away and it takes about 30-60min to get to the center (depending on where exactly you want to go). The bus runs every half an hour or every 20 min (not totally sure right now). For New Zealand Standard that's already pretty good for public transportation :) so in general: if you don't have a car keep in mind that in NZ the public transport is not (yet?) compareable to the standard we have in most European capitals ;)