roisin1

I live in Canberra, don't have anywhere for you to live but I can give basic advice. The best bet would be to arrange somewhere for yourself to stay for a couple of weeks upon arrival and then go and view properties for rent. Most people post rental properties (or house shares if that's of interest) on a website called allhomes.com.au although you'll also find some on gumtree, I'd just be a little more wary about gumtree ads. Also have a think about the suburb area you want to be in! Public transport is terrible in Canberra so it can easily take 45 mins on the bus to travel 10km. As a rough rule- inner north is trendy but expensive, inner south is expensive and full of public servants/embassies, belconnen is a bit cheaper and means Civic is pretty easily accessible, Gungahlin is new (and imho a bit soul less), woden/weston creek are the south side version of belco, tuggeranong is cheap but far away and some areas have a bad reputation.