It would appear that my landlord quite possibly ran them over whilst lifting and moving some heavy metal bars that were at the base of the water tank, likely protecting the pipes. I suspect it will be a repair job to be honest.
Luckily we happen to have several 22,000L tanks and more dams than I can count. Whilst all of the dams are very low, I know that there are 2 * 22,000L tanks that are full and my landlord has another 22,000L tank off some more farm sheds on this side of the mountain. I expect he has more on the other side as well. In australia, pretty much every roof anywhere is connected to a tank.
The main problem is that all but 1 of those tanks are not connected to the house tanks (despite one of the tanks actually collecting water from the roof of the house). The tank that is usually connected to the house that is full, can't be turned on because of the broken pipe AND because I think he must have hit the tap as well because that is also leaking. reconnecting 30cm (1 foot) of pipe will resolve the problem - but we will still not know where the pipes are!
He is not typically one for shelling out more than needed and has had to replace the guttering and the windows since we moved in 8 years ago. Digging up 500m of land and relaying pipes is probably not on the agenda (sadly).
But we are now out of water totally in the pipes for the house. I am using our water pump at the end of a hose pipe inside the house.... watch this space! lol.
At least this gets me out of cleaning the house for the house inspection on Thursday
