Down was much the same as up, except more slippery and harder to see where your feet were. Generally I saw most of my feet when they were above my head, while righting myself from being unexpectedly thrust face down in the mud. yeh..erm, brilliant fun ;)
Coming down was another matter, quite a few obstacles to get over and under (massive rucksack wasn’t helping much) and generally very steep.
It was all going so well as well … steaming along lovely open forest paths and just as we thought we could taste the beer in our grasp …… the gorse arrived! The jeep track grew over into thick foliage quicker than Max’s bedroom in Where the Wild Things Are. Sharp spiky barbs blocked the way. We just had to physically push and shove our way through solid bush. Legs and arms scratched up and bleeding and pampas grass slicing at your face as you went. Large sections of earth had fallen away in landslides and obscured the trail. Clambering up on fallen fallen trees on the steep valley side to check the route we were convinced we’d taken a wrong turn. We wondered why there was no mention in the Te Araroa trail notes of such an obscured track. Turned out to be the right way.. Phew! But that was tough going! :D
The clearing left by the old logging road seems to be the perfect conditions for Pampas Grass and Gorse to grow.. The closer we got the (amusingly named) peak Pukemoremore, the thicker it got. The zig zag just before the trail leaves the old road was the worst.. landslides, fallen tress, gauze and pampas so thick it was hard to see any evidence of trail. I became convinced that the path must of been re-routed around this section and doubled back to the first blow-down to see if I could find any evidence of a new trail we’d missed. Nothing, so on we went!
We were well soaked by this point and not much point in putting on the waterproofs. Too hot to be clad head to toe in plastic in any case! But we’ve had good opportunity to practice our limbo skills under a few ‘blowdowns’ at least :) 
Generally the Maratoto Track was pretty good. It didn’t look like it had seen much maintenance in recent years, but was still easy enough to follow, minus the odd blow down. Loved the little hand drawn maps at the beginning and end, a masterpiece of felt tip and biro work :)