By Dave Woods BBC Sport in Christchurch

First things first - New Zealand is a long way from home.

Britain arrived on Thursday after training in Australia

It's stating the obvious, but you are never more aware of that than when you are sitting in the middle of a row of four seats, cramped between three snoring, dribbling colleagues about 16 hours into a 29-hour flight.

Boy, that was fun.

But once the plane has landed and you've peeled yourself off the seat, the fun really does start.

Christchurch is our first port of call.

It's generally a fairly boring place. A city where the pubs shut at around nine o'clock in midweek, which has gone down well, but at least the sun has been shining.

Her majesty's finest travelling rugby league journalists arrived on Wednesday, while the GB players flew in on Thursday to crystal clear sunshine, blue skies and temperatures hovering around the 20C mark. Let's hope it stays that way until Saturday.

There have been some concerns about the potential size of the crowd at Jade Stadium. It's a rugby union stronghold and only 8,000 tickets had been sold by Wednesday evening.

The local leagues, though, reckon there will be a fair walk-up on the day and the final crowd size could be around the 20,000 mark.

In the city centre there is not much evidence of the game taking place. And many locals are surprised to learn that a rugby league international is taking place on their doorstep this weekend.

One of our most respected journalists spent the early hours walking around the hotel in his boxer shorts, convinced he was at Old Trafford

It's the first rugby league international at Jade Stadium since GB played here in 1996, the last Test in that disastrous tour. Let's hope that's not a portent.

The British press were invited to the ground on Wednesday night for a special dinner, hosted by rugby league great and now TV presenter Mario Fenech.

There was a bit of pommie-bashing going on, but several members of our party were immune to the barbed remarks and put-downs, given that they fell asleep in their chairs. A mixture of jet-lag, red wine and, in some cases, age.

A similar combination accounted for the behaviour of one of our most respected journalists, who spent a good chunk of the early hours of our first night walking around the hotel corridors dressed in only his boxer shorts and convinced he was at Old Trafford looking for the press box.

Mario Fenech (centre) looks a happy man

Two press conferences to cover on Thursday. The first was at the Kiwis' hotel, where Brian McLennan and three of his players - David Kidwell, Nigel Vagana and Ruben Wiki - were in attendance.

The second was a scrambled, hurried affair at the airport where the British squad had just landed.

They and we were squeezed into a room that might have been big enough had it been three times the size.

And several journalists were miffed when their interviews were abruptly cut short because the players had to get on a coach.

At least we got the chance to meet up again with some familiar New Zealand journos.

They have a similar role here to most British journalists in that they spend most days scrapping and fighting with editors and sub-editors trying to claim more room for rugby league coverage in the papers.

The Aussie journalists have it easy, all they have to do is cover the stories knowing that there will be acres of space to fill.

Anyway, enough for now. I have to put on the sandwich board and go for a stroll round Christchurch city centre for a couple of hours to help promote this weekend's game.