Cudden Point appears as a vantage point in the walkers’ passage eastward along the coast. From above it, Land's End has become a memory obscured by blackening cloud; the curve of the Lizard leads away to the southeast, past Prussia Cove. The point is not described as a destination or stopping place, but as a threshold in the view: the coast ahead opens even as the weather closes in.

A view along the coast

The scene links Cudden Point to contrasting traces of human use along the shore. Prussia Cove is identified as a former home of smugglers and coastguards, while its hillside cottages have become holiday homes, half of them empty. Their apparent shelter offers the narrator a fleeting possibility of spending the winter there, set against the exposed journey continuing along the coast.

The storm and the onward route

Rain intensifies as the walkers approach Porthleven, soaking them through their inadequate waterproofs and flooding the streets until their feet are submerged. They take shelter in a shop doorway with a pasty, but the downpour grows so heavy that the harbour and the far side of the road disappear from view. When the rain eases, they continue and eventually find shelter at the foot of the cliff on the shingle of Loe Bar. Cudden Point thus marks the beginning of a passage in which a wide coastal prospect gives way to near-total loss of visibility and the practical urgency of finding cover.