It's 'Mah-noo-kah' not 'Ma-new-ka' and 'Act-yoo-A.G.L' not 'Acti-waggle'.
Canberrans navigate by suburb, then district. If you don't know where all the suburbs are, you'd better learn fast.
Belconnen and Civic have the best malls. Belconnen has better parking though.
There's always some free parking somewhere for an hour or two if you hunt.
Australians emphasis different parts of the word than us Brits expect - "I-saacs" not "I-saacs".
News reports are really irritating when you don't know where anything is that's being referred to
It may be summer, but it still knows how to rain. Apparently the Canberra weather is as screwed this year as the English weather was.
Everything costs a fortune. Don't try and compare it, you'll go mad.
A 15-minute drive is considered far. If you have to cross or go round the lake (even if it's only going to take you 20 minutes anyway), it's a long way away.
There are traffic jams (contrary to advice), but the rush hour only actually lasts about 20 minutes and they're very specifically located on a few main routes into town. And T2 lanes are a blessing.
Numberplates are much less regulated here. You can have any word etc that's 3-7 letters long, and more or less any colour, as far as we can tell. Buses are all 'bus 124' etc and taxis are all 'tx 123'.
Cars are much more likely to be dented. Seriously.
The Canberra authorities take road safety seriously. I've seen 4 speed-check vans in the last 2 weeks, and they have signs everywhere saying things like "drive n txt, u b nxt" and "no seatbelt, no brains".
Canberra is called the bush capital for a reason. It's full of nature parks, and surrounded by nature reserve.
There are kangaroos here (yes! we saw them!)
Be careful when buying car insurance, 80% of the policies stick an additional excess on for drivers that have not had an Australian license for 2 years.