The 144-page The Great Ocean Road  is a collection of the best images from 16 Great Ocean Road calendars Hyett has published since 1998.

“It was always in my mind to a do a hard-cover book,” he said. “I pulled the 60 best images from the last 16 years.”

Capturing the coastline from Queenscliff to the Discovery Bay Coastal Park, beyond Portland, the images are mostly black and white panoramas of the route’s rugged scenery.

Alongside the photographs are extracts from two historic journals, the 1879-80 diary of Ernest (“Chinese”) Morrison’s walk along the Great Ocean Road and Eleanor Parkinson’s account of a three-week excursion to Cape Otway with the Roadknight family in 1863.

Scattered throughout are old engravings of townships and British admiralty charts of the coastline, all from the same period as the journals.

“I added the maps, charts and engravings, as they meshed in well with the text from the same era,” Hyett said.

“There is a timeless aspect to the book.”

Hyett said adding the text made the book more interesting to readers and kept it from being forgotten on a shelf.

“I wanted to create a picture book that was dimensional,” he said. “The text keeps it alive and you can always go back and read it.”

Hyett moved to Port Campbell from Melbourne 25 years ago, when the Great Ocean Road was just starting to become renowned as an unmissable tourist destination, he said. 

The book is available from Collins Booksellers, Warrnambool Books and Iron Bark, Port Fairy.

rhoulihan@fairfaxmedia.com.au