that last sunday before the rains came, we slathered up with sunscreen and walked into rozelle to meet family for brunch. i’d been curious about rosebud since before it opened months and months ago — a year? two? i’d watched its evolution from big empty space to slick cafe, but somehow had not made it past admiring the french aluminium stools on the footpath, and the big red mural above the pass.

inside is a big, open, sunlit space with bare lightbulbs on languid wires strung from the ceiling. inside is a big white plate with golden slabs of french toast, hewn from a brioche loaf, all soft and moist inside its caramelised crust. there are flaked almonds, sour cherries and a generous dollop of mascarpone. there is an artful pouring of maple syrup. it may be the most delicious thing you will eat all week.

i stopped short of licking my plate clean. accompanied by a tall glass of sweet, rose-infused egyptian tea, it was all the energy i needed for an afternoon on cockatoo island.

yes, the sydney biennale is on again. two years sure went by quickly! i don’t know what it says about me, but the attraction in heading out to cockatoo is the return trip through the harbour on the vintage ferries, and the island itself with its collection of old buildings and industrial relics.

the art, i found to be a bit hit and miss — in fact, there is a whole cluster of buildings on the south west end of the island that i missed on purpose, because every room housed a video installation. much too tedious for this philistine.

the turbine hall held most of the big statement pieces, though i didn’t photograph my most favourite of the lot because i didn’t think i could do it justice. french artist kader attia filled a hall with a recreation of a shanty town — actually, the roofs of a shanty town — with corrugated iron sheets going every which way, and tv aeriels and satellite dishes protruding haphazardly. walking across it was inexplicably moving and humbling.

another of my favourites was robert macpherson’s “chitters: a wheelbarrow for richard, 156 paintings, 156 signs”, which is just what it was. a larger-than-life celebration of the vernacular of roadside signs the artist encountered around australia. yes, yes, hand-lettering — i cannot go past it.

i was impressed by the spectacle of cai guo-qiang’s “inopportune: stage one”, which filled an entire cavernous warehouse space with a series of cars, in suspended animation, exploding with light. totally like watching a john woo movie.

there was whimsy, too, amidst the aging machinery. for example, the ornate dr moreau robot sculptures by rohan wealleans. they were fenced off from the public, so i never resolved the question of whether they commanded hugs, or fear.

i remember feeling a rare squeamishness in encountering the room of dead communist leaders, life-sized and waxen, lying in state. i may have whimpered and recoiled when i realised that fidel castro was still “alive”, his chest rising and falling with each mechanical breath.

and i could go on about the life-sized model of the hubble telescope, crafted by one peter hennessey out of nothing but sheets of plywood… but i won’t. instead, i will show you this sign with its jarring punctuation.

now that raises a shudder.

but it’s true: there were lots of plugs.

used to light up artwork like this:

oh wait, like this:

hm.

let us pause, and take ourselves outside, where we can tread on the grounds that have seen the footsteps of convicts, labourers and shipbuilders over 150 years. let us picnic on bagels and hommous. let us wonder at the state-of-the-art shower block — all polished concrete and stainless steel and the most elegant of utilitarian ceramic toiletware — that now services the well-appointed campsite. let us admire the jaunty stripes of this bench that looks over the historic tennis court by the caretaker’s residence up on the hill.

ahhh… all better.