I'll be headed to Canberra in October -- last thing I wanna do is... offend the Aussies by pronouncing their capitol wrong What is there to do in Canberra? How far is it from Sydney? I'm excited and nervous Anyone with info and is will to share said info I would give sacrifice to J/K, but I will be ever grateful!

If you do a search on canberra in this forum you'll get a lot of hits on what there is to do, where to eat etc.

It is about 3 hours drive from sydney to canberra, very easy drive and easy bus trip for weekends away. i used to live there, but had many friends in sydney so would ofter go up friday night on the bus and back sunday night.

also close to the snow (about 2 hours) and beach (batemans bay, south coast) also about 2 hours. make sure you go to the coast - there's lots and lots of lovely places on that part of the south coast to explore. both north and south of batemans bay there's lots of little coastal towns. the area overrun by canberrans during the summer and particularly the australia day weekend.

Canberra is geenrally prounounced Canbra, rather than Can-BER-Ra.

moving in october is a great time of year - you've missed the winter and also the windy september weather - by october the weather is great. i love summer in canberra - hot, dry and plenty of places to swim in creeks/rivers to cool off.

Lucky, lucky you! I wish I were moving back to Canberra. (Good pronuncication guide by lancefan. Just note the accent is on the first syllable--CAN bruh.)
Lancefan has listed some great things to do outside of Canberra (snowfields and beaches), so I'll list some of my favorite things to do inside the ACT:
1) seeing all the museums (National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, Australia War Memorial, Old Parliament House, Parliament House, Questacon, Tidbinbilla Tracking Station, etc.), 2) hiking and camping at Namadgi National Park (My favorite hike is the Yankee Hat hike because you see loads of kangaroos and there's some Aboriginal rock drawings too.), 3) hiking and picnicking at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (Be sure to go on some of the ranger-led walks. We were able to see platypus on one of the ranger-led hikes we took.), 4)visiting Lanyon Homestead to see what station life was like. Don't miss the candlelight Christmas carol sing-along they have there each December., 5) going on the ghost tour of Hume Cottage in Yass each October. You might not make it this year since advance reservations are required, but plan to do it next year.
You should get to Canberra just in time for swooping season--ask a local about that!

thank you so MUCH for the information, definately will be taking this to heart.

Certainly Neil Cammack will chime in if he is ever able to leave the pleasures of Canada behind

Andrewdavid