As you enter Oreburgh city you will be greeted by someone will will ask you how come you have no gym badges and tell you follow him to the pokemon gym to get a badge. In order to get badges in pokemon platinum you have defeat the various gym leaders. Each gym leader you defeat awards you a badge. As you get more badges you advance in the story plus other things clear out for you like getting more things to buy in the pokemart! So you want to get all the badges. There are eight gym leaders in Sinnoh.

Anyway you follow the guy to the gym, and find someone standing in front of it. It's your rival. He will tell you how tough the gym leader is. But the gym leader, Roark, is not there right now, he headed to the coal mine. So that's where you will want to go.

Before heading to the coal mine, make sure to go to the pokemon center and heal your pokemon. To get to the pokemon center, just head east from the gym. While in the pokemon center, go down the stairs to the right. There, Teala, the guide to the pokemon wi-fi club will greet you. She will give you a pal pad. The Pal Pad lets you register your friends so that you can link with them over Nintendo WFC to trade pokemon, battle, and stuff like that.

Head out of the pokemon center. You may go to the poke mart to buy some more potions if you want. The Pokemart is behind the Gym. Also lets do some exploring before heading out to the Oreburgh mine. Talk to people, check out what is inside all the houses. A kid in the 2nd floor in the house to the North West will give you a Dusk Ball as a gift. You can use dusk balls to catch pokemon more easily when it is dark, such as at night or in a cave. You will probaby notice a big building behind the pokemon center. This is the Oreburgh Mining Museum. Don't worry about this now, we will get back to it later.

Time to head to the Oreburgh mines!