Gurnard’s Head is a headland on the South West Coast Path whose setting in Ray and Moth’s journey is defined by the rugged, weather-exposed ground around it. The approach joins a view of successive headlands with a hidden ravine where water, flowers, and rain shape the walkers’ experience of the coast.

Setting and Approach

After the clouds lifted enough to reveal Gurnard’s Head and the headlands between it and the walkers, the path descended through a ravine cut by a small stream. Flowers crowded its banks in such profusion that they seemed to have grown from seeds washed out of the gardens of Zennor and caught in the damp soil. The sheltered hollow offered a striking contrast to the low grey sky and exposed coast above it.

The route toward the headland also passed through difficult weather. Ray and Moth ate handfuls of blackberries as they wound their way toward Gurnard’s Head, staining their hands purple. Then rain and crashing rollers battered the coast, while the broken rocky path turned slippery and muddy. By mid-afternoon they gave up walking, pitched their tent in a field, changed into clothes that were only slightly less wet, and spent the storm-bound hours eating rice and playing games inside.

Encounters on the Coast

The landscape around the headland placed the walkers among other people whose purposes were different from theirs. On a bench, Ray and Moth ate a wet fudge bar and listened to voices and marching feet. A group passed, focused on reaching Land’s End that night and keeping to its schedule. Their confidence sharpened the contrast with Ray and Moth’s own slower journey: Land’s End remained days away, and beyond it lay an unresolved question about whether to continue.

Narrative Significance

Gurnard’s Head is presented through movement rather than as a destination with a separate history. The ravine’s dense flowers and stream offer a brief, sheltered counter-image to the storm, mud, and exhaustion of the exposed coast. Blackberries provide another small point of pleasure, but the weather soon forces Ray and Moth to stop. In this stretch of the walk, the headland marks a route where beauty and hardship arrive together, while the passing marchers make the couple’s uncertain timetable newly visible.