Blackburn & Bolton

After a few days of relaxing and wasting some days at home, we decided to plan a day trip up to Bolton Abbey, 50-60 miles up the motor way.
Sam and I left in the morning, picked up our friend Adam from Blackburn and travelled up to Bolton. The Abbey is a large old church, built in 1100's and was partly destroyed in the 1500's by King Henry VIII during the dissolution of the Monasteries.
It is a very impressive structure, made more so by the surrounding graveyard, river and rolling hills. There are many hikes which can be undertaken by the visitors, we chose a rather easy one, which took us up to the top of one of the hills which looks over the Abbey and the river, the view was amazing! I was surprised to see so many people visiting the site.

Once we'd finished our walk, we mucked around skimming stones on the river. It is really good to have been able to spend some time out in the sun, the past couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous.
Sure enough, as soon as we returned to the car, it started raining. Originally we'd planned to go to Clitheroe to see the castle and tower there, but the weather was a deterrent and opted for a couple beers instead.
We went back via Adam's house to pick up a couple of things and headed to Ewood Park, which is the home pitch to the Blackburn Rovers, an English Premier League side. They were playing a Carling Cup match against Sheffield Wednesday, a team from one of the lower divisions.
At the kick off, it was obvious that Blackburn were going to win, but for them to kick three goals to none in the first 7 minutes of the match, i thought we were going to see a rout, instead, in typical Blackburn fashion, they went on to kick none of the rest of the match, and even let Sheffield sneak one in after half time.
It was very cool, i quite enjoyed the night and the atmosphere. I can not wait until Sunday's match Manchester United vs Arsenal. It is going to be one of the highlights of my entire trip.