Bobbing along like a cork in Cork

I've got five minutes spare during a very hectic and enjoyable Press trip to Ireland to check-in here. It's Sunday afternoon and we've just returned from a kayaking trip through the city centre of Cork on the River Lee with Barry from www.atlanticseakayaking.com. To be sure it was drizzling and overcast but hey, what's a bit of rain when you can paddle through a city centre with seals, swans and herons for company? For the record, there were four sprint races while we on the river too and the Tourism Ireland team, skippered by the fearless Donna Campbell and propelled exhaustedly by yours truly beat all comers. After feasting on soda bread, fresh Irish seafood and dairy products, mountainous breakfasts and every imaginable culinary delicacy from this part of Ireland it was excellent to do some stomach-tightening exercise.

I've not done many Press Trips in recent times - where a bunch of journalists are led around a country/region/from hotel to pub to pub to hotel by chaperones from national or regional tourist organisations - but i am thoroughly enjoying this one. While it's been full-on - we got straight on with it almost the moment myself and a fellow journalist, Gabrielle Dunlevy from AAP, arrived after twenty-seven hours of flying from Australia - it's had a great mix of cultural experiences, eating delectable food, guided walking tours and lovely drives through the simply gorgeous Irish countryside.

I've never felt so fresh arriving after such a long flight and that's in large part down to flying in British Airways's very comfortable Business Class on a space available upgrade. The seats, which flatten out to create a full lie down bed, may not be the top of the range when it comes to the premium product these days but the BA staff, particularly on the first leg (Sydney-Bangkok) of the BA10's journey did everything to make it an enjoyable trip. I slept about ten or eleven hours of the twenty three hours to London and that's about the best I've ever manage. I also watched the fantastic "The King's Speech", which, being a Dad of two young kids, I still hadn't seen. Reaching Heathrow the transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, where my Dublin flight with Aer Lingus was departing from, was really easy and all in all this was one of the least hassled journeys I've made between my adopted country and the continent of my birth.

It's such a cliche I know but with my roots very much in Ireland on my Mum's side - in fact from County Cork where I now am - I have a real feeling of being at home here. We had a sublime drive yesterday afternoon, along the coast south of Waterford and then into the sun-kissed countryside en route to Mallow, north of Cork and I just felt very touched by the undulating, green landscape.

We've dinner tonight (there you go I'm even sounding Irish already) here in Cork and no doubt we'll be hitting the town afterwards to sample some of the city's famous music in a couple of pubs. Sadly, after a four day whirlwind, that's it for our visit to Ireland and then we're heading to London and Weymouth with Sarah Styles from Visit Britain. We're checking out Windsor and the Olympics venues in the British capital and then looking at the Olympic sailing venue and doing some walking and sailing on Dorset's Jurassic coast after that. It's hard to believe that the 2012 Olympics are just over a year away.

I've barely scraped the surface of the riches we've experienced in this special, special country over the last few days. The Celtic Tiger's really been ravaged by the GFC and yet the people remain funny, charming and full of song and cities and towns like Waterford and Cobh - where the Titanic left from 99 years ago - are as beautiful and vibrant as they ever were.