"We'd find a broken twig and I'd look at it like, well, it's a broken twig, but he's like, 'Bro it got broken by a boot heel because of the direction'. Once you actually see the picture that he's painting you go, 'Yeah shucks, it is'."
He said trying to track a person posed a different set of challenges to chasing game through the bush.
"I'm not used to looking for the square rounded back heel, I'm looking for an animal print which is pronged, normally a venison or a pig," he said.
"I thought we were just going to find his trail and just try and make ground up on him. But the SAS boys were very much about looking at the contours of the land using their maps - where's he going to go? What's his logical route? Is he going to try and blast down the river?"
Lambert said the Kiwi trackers frustrated him by pinning him down in a valley.
"They did what they should have done which is area deniability - they set up in all the perfect places, they could scan that whole area. Why track me when you can see me? I wasn't being tracked by them on the second day - they were denying me, I couldn't go anywhere, which is exactly what they should have done."
He said he was impressed by the Maori methods and wished he had time to learn some of them.
Other Manhunt episodes feature Lambert trying to evade capture in the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, the Philippines and the United States.
During his military career he was deployed in combat missions to Afghanistan and Kosovo, including participating and planning more than 20 US Navy Seal missions.
Manhunt is part of Survival Week which begins tonight on Discovery Channel.
Matua Parkinson's top tips for being safe in the bush
1: Take the right equipment and clothing
2: Know your terrain
3: If you're hunting, identify your target beyond all doubt and carry what you kill
4: Tell people when and where you're going and when you'll be back
5: Enjoy yourself