Can get JSON from Google Maps call - php

Question

I have managed to get the longitude and latitude of postcodes from Google Maps but I am unable to then get the distance between the two. The following url gives me some JSON:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins=51.6896118,-0.7846495&destinations=51.7651382,-3.7914676&units=imperial&sensor=false
But I can't strip it out using PHP:
<?php
$du = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins=51.6896118,-0.7846495&destinations=51.7651382,-3.7914676&units=imperial&sensor=false";
$djd = json_decode(utf8_encode($du),true);
print("-".$djd."-");
?>
Anybody know why this is?
EDIT
The following worked just fine:
<?php
$pc1 = 'SA92NH';
$pc2 = 'HP270SW';
$url1 = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=".$pc1."&sensor=false";
$url2 = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=".$pc2."&sensor=false";
$url1_data = file_get_contents($url1);
$url2_data = file_get_contents($url2);
$json1_data = json_decode(utf8_encode($url1_data),true);
$json2_data = json_decode(utf8_encode($url2_data),true);
$longlat1 = $json1_data['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'].",".$json1_data['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'];
$longlat2 = $json2_data['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'].",".$json2_data['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'];
print($longlat1."<br>\n");
print($longlat2."<br>\n");
?>

Answer 1

Is this what you are looking for?
You need to get the data, you cannot only type the url.
In my example i use get file_get_contents.
<?php
$du = file_get_contents("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins=51.6896118,-0.7846495&destinations=51.7651382,-3.7914676&units=imperial&sensor=false");
$djd = json_decode(utf8_encode($du),true);
print_r($djd);
?>
http://codepad.viper-7.com/LqxpJW

Answer 2

$url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins=51.6896118,-0.7846495&destinations=51.7651382,-3.7914676&units=imperial&sensor=false';
$content = file_get_contents($url);
$json = json_decode($content, true);
And after that access $json like an array !
Something like that:
echo $json['rows']['elements']['distance']['text'];