If you could live / work from home in New Zealand - where would you go?

For those of you who are familiar with www.couchsurfing.com, the next Collective will be meeting in New Zealand in the coming months. Currently, we're scouring the countryside - from North to South, and any-which-way, trying to find a town / city / village / wonderful space to spend the next several months.

If anyone has traveled to New Zealand, or lives there currently, we'd love any and all suggestions on places to live.
Some criteria:
Infrastructure (access to quality groceries, transportation, **internet access**, etc)
Reasonable rents / local survival expenses
Proximity to a larger city (not essential)
And then ideally - sunsets, beaches, waterfalls and gold pouring from the heavens, right?

For more information on CouchSurfing, the Collective, and what we're going for, check out the following message board.
www.couchsurfing.com/group.html

We want to get to know the country, the villages, the people, the everything as fully and soon as possible! So, post any-and-all New Zealand related suggestions, travel stories, wonderful experiences, relatives with free housing for us(*wink*), in this topic, or on the CS board.

Thanks a million, and happy travels!
Nikolas

And if you haven't found Couch Surfing yet... then you just did! A community of over 120,000, opening their couches and homes to the compelling philosopher & savvy traveler in all of us. See what you think!